Pierre Bonnard, The Bath 1925
© ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2002
Display caption
This is one of a series of paintings that Bonnard made of his wife Marthe in the bath. Though she was in her mid-fifties, the artist depicts her as a young woman. Marthe spent many hours in the bathroom: she may have had tuberculosis, for which water therapy was a popular treatment, or she may have had an obsessive neurosis. The bath, cut off at both ends, and the structure of the wall create a rigorously geometric composition. The effect is strangely lifeless, and almost tomb-like; as if the painting were a silent expression of sorrow for Marthe's plight.
August 2004
Other works of art you may be interested in
Find similar artworks
Artist
Pierre Bonnard
(23)
Category
Painting
(5,321)
Decade
1920-9
(805)
Style or ‘-ism’
20th century 1900-1945
(1,052)
Intimism
(28)
objects
(12,243)
furnishings
(1,928)
bath
(23)
people
(21,186)
actions: postures and motions
(6,764)
lying down
(221)
actions: processes and functions
(1,271)
washing
(72)
portraits: female
(944)
Bonnard, Marthe
(4)
places
(23,428)
countries and continents
(12,032)
France
(2,429)