DescriptionAfter first studying law, Pierre Bonnard pursued art at the École des Beaux-Arts and the Académie Julian (1888) in Paris. There, he met fellow art students Édouard Vuillard and Maurice Denis with whom he formed the Nabis (1892–99), a group of young painters under the leadership of Paul Sérusier who followed Paul Gauguin's ideas about representing things symbolically in strong patterns and color.

Shortly after 1900 Bonnard redirected his style of painting to more closely follow the Impressionist tradition, modified by his innate sense of decoration and design. He continued to use light to change the substance and color of form, but he preferred to paint in his studio rather than in the open air and structured his compositions with formal pattern. He so convincingly went beyond the limits of local color and the laws of natural perspective that in the "Terrace at Vernonnet" the boldness of his interpretation is barely noticeable. For example, we read the tree trunk that defines the foreground as a beautiful violet strip as well as a tree, and the foliage in the background merges into a tapestry of color.

Although Bonnard continued to paint the Paris he loved, he developed a passion for the countryside and the seasons. The daily intimacies of family life add warmth to his art (he was also referred to as an "Intimist"), but there is nothing casual in his presentation. He believed that in landscape the human figure "should be part of the background against which it is placed," and more than any other of the older Impressionist painters he deliberately controlled the viewer's eye. He knew exactly what he wanted us to see, but he didn't want everything in the picture to be evident at first glance — more concentrated looking was expected.

It is probably Bonnard's last view of the terrace at his house in the Seine valley between Normandy and the Île de France, not far from Giverny, the home of his friend Claude Monet. He purchased the property in 1912 and used it as a subject for his painting until 1939. Elements of his comfortable bourgeois life are in evidence: fruit, wine, company. The gaze of the central figure is rather enigmatic, as is the gesture of the woman at the right. The main figures concentrate on their inner world rather than on their companions or the tasks in which they are engaged. Bonnard painted a shaded corner of the irregularly shaped, raised terrace that surrounded the house. Only a banister indicates the steps that descended to the sprawling garden below. In the painting the terrace serves as a stage, with the garden rising like a curtain beyond. Toward the end of his life Bonnard approached abstraction, increasingly subordinating the subject in order to obtain the desired effects of color and light.

Signatures, Inscriptions, and MarkingsSignature: [lower right]: Bonnard

Selected Exhibition HistoryNew York: Museum of Modern Art. Los Angeles, California: Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Chicago, Illinois: Art Institute of Chicago. Bonnard and his Environment, 1964, p. 83. pg. 108, no. 53

Tokyo, Japan: Le Musee National d'Art Occidental. Kyoto, Japan: Musee National d'art Moderne,. Pierre Bonnard, 1968, on. 43, p. 78 illus. in color.

New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, Masterpieces of Fifty Centuries, 1970. no. 388, p. 321 (listed and illus.)

Tokyo, Japan: Tokyo National Museum and The Kyoto Municipal Museum. Treasured Masterpieces of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1972. no. 106. (ill. in color)

Lenningrad, Russia: The Hermitage. Moscow, Russia: The Pushkin Museum, 1975. 100 Paintings from The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Paris, France: Musee National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, February 23 - May 21, 1984. Washington, D.C.: Phillips Collection, June 9 - August 25, 1984. Dallas, Texas: Dallas Museum of Art, September 13 - November 11, 1984. Bonnard: The Late Paintings, pg. 142, cat. no. 18, pg. 143 illus.

Zurich, Switzerland: Kunsthaus Zurich, December 14, 1984 - March 10, 1985. Pierre Bonnard. Cat. no. 96, p. 203, illus. pg. 202 discussed

Sydney, Australia: The Art Gallery of New South Wales, February 5-
April 2, 1985; Brisbane, Australia: The Queensland Art Gallery, April 16-
May 28, 1985; Melbourne, Australia: National Gallery of Vicoria, June 11-
August 6, 1985; 20th Century Masters fro The Metropolitan Museum of Art. p.31, illus. in color.

Dusseldorf, Germany: Kunstsammlung Nordheim Westfalen, January 23 - April 12, 1993. Cat. no. 71

Chicago, Illinois: The Art Institute of Chicago, February 21 - May 16, 2001. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, June 18 - September 9, 2001.Bonnard, Vuillard, Denis, Roussel: The Decorative Paintings. Exh. cat #57, p. 196 (illus. in color) p. 196-197 (cat. entry).

Washington, DC: The Phillips Collection, September 21, 2002 - January 12, 2003. Pierre Bonnard: Early and Late. Cat. no. 57, pg. 197 (illus.), pp. 196-199 (discussed).

Paris, France: Musee d'Art Moderne de al Ville de Paris, January 18 - April 30, 2006. Pierre Bonnard: l'oeuvre d'art, un arret du temps.
pp. 180-81, illustrated in color and discussed.

Selected BibliographyAmory, Dita, ed. "Pierre Bonnard: The Late Still Lifes and Interiors." New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art/Yale University Press, 2009. Pg. 71, ill.

Groom, Gloria. Beyond the Easel: Decorative Painting Bonnard, Vuillard, Denis, and Roussel, 1890-1930. Exh. cat. The Art Institute of Chicago: Yale University Press, 2001. Pp. 196-199 (discussed); Cat. no. 57.