MASP

Along with Maurice Denis (1870-1943), Édouard Vuillard (1868-1940), and Paul Sérusier (1864-1927), Bonnard was one of the members of the Nabis group, which used pure colors applied over flat surfaces as well as figures with stylized contours, in order to access a reality beyond what is visible. At some point, the artist started to privilege interior domestic scenes, the protagonists of which—often relatives or people close to him—appear immersed in the intimacy of their daily lives. Bonnard also developed a subtle use of light, integrating shades of different temperatures in vaporous environments, where the light seems to pass through the mist. Female Nude is a good example of this chromatic treatment proper to Bonnard. The figure detaches herself from an undefined background in which the succession of shades suggests a vibrating rhythm. Such different treatment given to figure and background is reinforced by the mass of lighter color that seems to emanate from this young naked body, like an aura. The model is Marthe de Méligny (1869-1942), who started to pose for Bonnard from 1890 on, and whom she would later marry in 1925. Over time, Marthe was always represented as a young woman, reiterating the ideal of timeless beauty, despite the passage of years. Actually, by the time this painting was made, between 1930 and 1933, Marthe was already aged around 60 years.

— MASP Curatorial Team, 2017

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While the avant-garde built and destroyed new forms of representation around movement it, in his inner world Bonnard utilized varied themes that were essential for his art: landscapes, still lifes, and nudes, critically adopting suggestions that he found most suitable for his language. About 1927, under the influence of Renoir later paintings, Bonnard reaches a new form of lyricism based on the use of colors more and more strong and brilliant. The Masp work Female Nude datable at 1930 (Camesasca suggested a later date, 1932-33) represents Marthe, the painter’s wife, as an eternal adolescent in the artist’s memory. This intimate style reconstructs reality through a gradual rediscovery, which like Cézanne maintains a dimension of the passage of time comparable to Proust’s poetics.

— Unknown authorship, 1998

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