Abstract
| Language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages | 267-283 |
| Number of pages | 13 |
| Journal | Journal of Contemporary Painting |
| Volume | 4 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Oct 2018 |
| Event | Peripheral Vision- Responding to the Work of Pierre Bonnard - The Metropolitan Arts Centre, The Works conference room, Belfast, Northern Ireland Duration: 26 Jun 2018 → 26 Jun 2018 https://paintingresearchgroup.wordpress.com/2018/05/10/bonnard-symposium/ |
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Keywords
- Marthe BonnardPierre Bonnard painting modernism bath domestic Ophelia
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Who Killed Marthe Bonnard : Madness, Morbidity and Pierre Bonnard's 'The Bath'. / Wallace, Louise.
In: Journal of Contemporary Painting, Vol. 4, No. 2, 01.10.2018, p. 267-283.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
TY - JOUR
T1 - Who Killed Marthe Bonnard
T2 - Journal of Contemporary Painting
AU - Wallace, Louise
PY - 2018/10/1
Y1 - 2018/10/1
N2 - There is an ongoing revaluation of Pierre Bonnard, beginning with a retrospective at the Centre Georges Pompidou in 1984 and witnessed most recently in ‘Pierre Bonnard; Painting Arcadia’ at the Fine Arts Museum, San Francisco 2016. The resulting body of literature, from reviews to catalogue essays, operates to subsume Bonnard within the modernist canon. However, the gender ambiguities in Bonnard’s practice problematize these attempts to read his paintings using modernist tropes. In particular, his depiction of his wife Marthe Bonnard in the bathtub does not fit easily within the genre of ‘the bather’. Across the literature there has been the occultation of a specific woman (Marthe), replacing her with the Ophelia stereotype through an extension of Toril Moi’s ‘death dealing’ binarism. As a consequence of reiterated speculation regarding Marthe’s mental health she continues to be characterized as the neurotic woman disintegrating in the bath/sarcophagus. This article argues that the literature creates a deathly and deadly porous woman. Reviewing the weight of gendered metaphoric language the article will offer a reading of the bath series and Bonnard’s late interiors based on the recognition of his difference – a difference that ruptures genre.
AB - There is an ongoing revaluation of Pierre Bonnard, beginning with a retrospective at the Centre Georges Pompidou in 1984 and witnessed most recently in ‘Pierre Bonnard; Painting Arcadia’ at the Fine Arts Museum, San Francisco 2016. The resulting body of literature, from reviews to catalogue essays, operates to subsume Bonnard within the modernist canon. However, the gender ambiguities in Bonnard’s practice problematize these attempts to read his paintings using modernist tropes. In particular, his depiction of his wife Marthe Bonnard in the bathtub does not fit easily within the genre of ‘the bather’. Across the literature there has been the occultation of a specific woman (Marthe), replacing her with the Ophelia stereotype through an extension of Toril Moi’s ‘death dealing’ binarism. As a consequence of reiterated speculation regarding Marthe’s mental health she continues to be characterized as the neurotic woman disintegrating in the bath/sarcophagus. This article argues that the literature creates a deathly and deadly porous woman. Reviewing the weight of gendered metaphoric language the article will offer a reading of the bath series and Bonnard’s late interiors based on the recognition of his difference – a difference that ruptures genre.
KW - Marthe BonnardPierre Bonnard painting modernism bath domestic Ophelia
U2 - 10.1386/jcp.4.2.267_1
DO - 10.1386/jcp.4.2.267_1
M3 - Article
VL - 4
SP - 267
EP - 283
JO - Journal of Contemporary Painting
JF - Journal of Contemporary Painting
SN - 2052-6695
IS - 2
ER -