1912 (ca), Pierre Bonnard, The Pont de Grenelle and the Eiffel Tower -- Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (Richmond)
From the musuem label: This resplendent view of Paris is a superb example of Bonnard's aptitude for using paint to express his subjective impressions before a landscape--or, in this case, a city-scape. The view was captured from Quai d'Auteuil in the city's 16th arrondissement. The Grenelle railway spans the Seine, serving as the composition's horizon line. Over the bridge's center looms a quarter-scale replica of Liberty Enlightening the World (1889) by Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi (1834-1904). The original 1886 work was presented to the American nation by the French republic and is better known as the Statue of Liberty. The Eiffel Tower stands nonchalantly in the center of the scene, under the softly clouded expanse of a summery blue sky, its tip obscured by the jutting branches of one of the pair of trees in the foreground that frames the distant monument. The bold chromatic contrasts aid in distracting the viewer's eye from the pedestrians who enter from the edges of the scene and the car that is already passing beyond the composition's frame. There is an optimism that permeates the subject and style of the work, one that echoes the exuberant innovations of Bonnard's Fauve contemporaries.
1912 (ca), Pierre Bonnard, The Pont de Grenelle and the Eiffel Tower -- Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (Richmond)
From the musuem label: This resplendent view of Paris is a superb example of Bonnard's aptitude for using paint to express his subjective impressions before a landscape--or, in this case, a city-scape. The view was captured from Quai d'Auteuil in the city's 16th arrondissement. The Grenelle railway spans the Seine, serving as the composition's horizon line. Over the bridge's center looms a quarter-scale replica of Liberty Enlightening the World (1889) by Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi (1834-1904). The original 1886 work was presented to the American nation by the French republic and is better known as the Statue of Liberty. The Eiffel Tower stands nonchalantly in the center of the scene, under the softly clouded expanse of a summery blue sky, its tip obscured by the jutting branches of one of the pair of trees in the foreground that frames the distant monument. The bold chromatic contrasts aid in distracting the viewer's eye from the pedestrians who enter from the edges of the scene and the car that is already passing beyond the composition's frame. There is an optimism that permeates the subject and style of the work, one that echoes the exuberant innovations of Bonnard's Fauve contemporaries.