Dancing Men and Racing Sheep

I went to Masham on the weekend. Masham is a town in Yorkshire. It has an exceptionally pretty square, which is where the major part of the event that had drawn us to Masham was held. This was the Masham Sheep Fair, usually held in September, but, luckily for us, postponed this year until October so as not to clash with a bicycle race that ran through Yorkshire at the end of September.

The fair was a complete delight. The part that involved actual living sheep and the farmers who raise them reminded me of rural shows in Australia, which I love for the same reasons I loved Masham Sheep Fair. That is, both the sheep fair and Australian country shows are places where rural people can enjoy the things they find interesting and admire each others' skills and no one suggests theirs are not important preoccupations.

Here is one of the sheep classes being judged. I love the arcane knowledge that is involved and I find it poignant that there always has to be a loser, although all entrants, I'm sure, have poured so much energy and emotion into this day and their entrant's qualities:

I became rather fond of this sheep, although I never found out whether it won a prize and I certainly don't possess anywhere near enough knowledge to be able to guess:

While we waited for the main event of the day - the sheep races - we enjoyed this rather wonderful display of Morris dancing. I was moved by the fact that a member of the team has a genetic make up that we are encouraged to make disappear, for convenience's sake, (I'm not condemning anyone who responds to the encouragement, simply mourning the intolerance and lack of kindness that leads to people feeling so unsupported that they feel the need to):

All the dancers made their own hat decorations. I got a close look at one and saw how they attach the flowers with wire like the stuff I remember using at the bottom of vases in my flower arranging days. I thought the tambourine player's was a particularly fine floral display and I was tempted to label this photograph, 'Hey, Mr Tambourine Man', but I was told by one of the Morris Dancing groupies that he wasn't a tambourine player at all but something that began with b, I think, and was originally a gaelic word, (which means tambourine player):

The sheep racing turned out to be as exciting as only a sport involving very unreliable creatures can be (we were assured, by the way, that these sheep had been rigorously trained):

To reach the racing we had to walk through the churchyard of Masham's very pretty church, St Mary's. On our way back, we went inside, partly to see the decorations for the harvest festival but mainly to see the church interior.

Victorian stained glass is often sneered at, but the church's examples of the same were really very pretty:

Even in the 1950s they could manage something not actually sickening:

But by the time this, "the Masham Millennium Window" was designed the ability to create beauty seems to have been mislaid. Even the authorities who paid for it seemed to have dimly apprehended this, which is why, presumably, they felt it necessary to put a large explanatory notice beside it, telling the viewer what the pictures are of - indeed, revealing to us that those smudges are representations of leaves and various other things and not just, well, smudges:

If you want further proof of the decline in aesthetic standards, I present to you the contemporary altar cloth on display at St Mary's, Masham:

Ugh. You think you are getting away from the disasters of modern art by leaving London during the Frieze Art Fair, but, if you go into any Church of England premises these days, you cannot be sure that you will be safe from equal horrors.

But never mind, there were other lovely things from earlier times to cheer one up in the church.

For a start, these dear faces on either side of the entrance:

And then a real treasure in the form of something called the Wyvill monument (not that the church itself seems to like it very much - as well as a railing half obscuring it, you had to climb behind a screen and over piles of old chairs and a table to get any kind of look at it, almost as if they were a bit ashamed of it):

There was at least a clear sign that provided information about the monument, once you had completed the obstacle race to reach it. It explained that the monument was begun in 1613, to commemorate Sir Marmaduke Wyvill (or Wyvell). He was involved in the Rebellion of the Northern Earls in 1569 (which I will have to look up) but was pardoned by Queen Elizabeth I and went on to become MP for Richmond (Masham is in the seat of Richmond) in 1585 and between 1597 and 1598. King James I made him a baronet in 1611. He married Magdalen Danby and they had 12 children. Sir Marmaduke did not die until 9 January 1617, the sign tells us, adding that it was actually 1618, since in those days New Year's Day was on 25 March, which was news to me. 

This is Sir Marmaduke's wife, Lady Magdalene, plus an ill-conceived but easily removable sheep-fair-related addition.

Beneath Sir Marmaduke and Lady Magdalene are exquisitely carved figures representing their eight surviving children (six sons and two daughters), kneeling in prayer.

It is a really lovely thing and its sheer age makes someone like me who has spent so much of their life in the new world absolutely astonished that it isn't shown more honour at St Mary's but instead half hidden.

There were several memorial plaques around the church that while not especially lovely to look at, did, through their inscriptions conjure up what on the face of it seems to have been a gentler world:

This is in remembrance of someone who might have come from a Patrick O'Brian novel:

"In memory of John Harrison Esq. formerly Purser with the Royal Navy, who died at Masham, June 19th 1808, a man much esteemed both in his public station and in his retirement respected by the honourable for his integrity, courted by the social for his vivacity and information and much sought after by the sick and needy for his active beneficence."

Integrity, vivacity and beneficence, what more could one ask for in a fellow townsperson?

Well perhaps "filial piety and affection ... the most perfect urbanity of manners and those various qualities of the head and heart which make men estimable", which are the elements displayed in the personality of the man commemorated by this next tablet:

It is extremely rare nowadays, I find, to discover "perfect urbanity of manners" anywhere.

I thought the coat of arms over the main door was rather splendid too. Although possibly not particularly old, it had the benefit of sticking closely to tradition (don't you love the way that almost anything old now has to be improved by a sign of some kind, whether reminding you that the way you came in to a building will also provide a good exit point or, in a street, indicating a T junction, impending set of traffic lights, speed limit or whatever - it doesn't matter to the powers that be, provided that the sign in question is positioned so as to obscure a lovely old building or clutter a beautiful vista:

But at least we will never need to wonder where our emergency assembly point might be.

There was an extremely nice house next to the church that I assume was once the vicar's; I might have been tempted to take orders or whatever it is one does to become a vicar if I'd been promised that place, but of course back in the days when that actually was a vicar's house you weren't allowed to be a lady vicar:

While we were waiting between sheep races, (while the trainers were issuing their last, detailed instructions to the highly skilled sheep, we were told), I looked at grave stones and it occurred to me that ones like these are very good for mental arithmetic - if William was 72 when he died in 1956 and Margaret was 90 when she died in 1999, what was the difference in age between the two of them?:

I also saw a woman knitting with such skill that I was left in awe.

So all in all a great day out. If you are anywhere near Masham and you hear the Sheep Fair's on, don't miss it - you will feel the cares of the modern world slip from your shoulders for a few hours (provided you aren't showing animals yourself, of course) and you might even win a bob or two if you place your bets wisely on a sheep (avoid the one with the blue scarf round her neck, would be my hard-won advice)

Some Poems

I always think I don't want to go away from home, but being away does have the advantage that you can read, undisturbed by the necessity to do your normal, time-consuming chores.

I've discovered this again over the last few days, which I've spent in Yorkshire. We've been walking, but when not walking I haven't had to hoover or hang out the washing. And as a result I've been able to read.

As well as various books, I've had time to read some poetry and, thanks to the Twitter account called @CarolineBirdUK, I've come across two poems I particularly love.

The first is by Jane Kenyon who, although I ought to have, I had not heard of until now. It is called Happiness and I think it is beautiful and seems especially appropriate, with its echoes of the Parable of the Prodigal Son, which was the gospel reading at Mass only recently:

Happiness by Jane Kenyon

There’s just no accounting for happiness,
or the way it turns up like a prodigal
who comes back to the dust at your feet
having squandered a fortune far away.

And how can you not forgive?
You make a feast in honor of what
was lost, and take from its place the finest
garment, which you saved for an occasion
you could not imagine, and you weep night and day
to know that you were not abandoned,
that happiness saved its most extreme form
for you alone.

No, happiness is the uncle you never
knew about, who flies a single-engine plane
onto the grassy landing strip, hitchhikes
into town, and inquires at every door
until he finds you asleep midafternoon
as you so often are during the unmerciful
hours of your despair.

It comes to the monk in his cell.
It comes to the woman sweeping the street
with a birch broom, to the child
whose mother has passed out from drink.
It comes to the lover, to the dog chewing
a sock, to the pusher, to the basketmaker,
and to the clerk stacking cans of carrots
in the night.
                    It even comes to the boulder
in the perpetual shade of pine barrens,
to rain falling on the open sea,
to the wineglass, weary of holding wine.

I suppose the last three lines are debatable, but never mind.

The second poem is by a poet that almost everyone, including me, has already heard of - Sylvia Plath. It is, apparently, part of her most famous collection, Ariel. I'm ashamed to admit that, although I thought I'd read that book, I somehow completely overlooked this poem until now.

Curriculum-setters may be a little to blame for my oversight, (although mostly me, I admit). Their emphasis, when I was at school, was always on those poems that suggest Plath's unsettled mental state and ambivalence (to put it mildly) towards her father, the ones that match the disturbing tone of her novel The Bell Jar, a book I do not want to ever read again.

This poem, by contrast, is full of an observant pleasure in existence - or so it seems to me:

Balloons by Sylvia Plath

Since Christmas they have lived with us,
Guileless and clear,
Oval soul-animals,
Taking up half the space,
Moving and rubbing on the silk

Invisible air drifts,
Giving a shriek and pop
When attacked, then scooting to rest, barely trembling.
Yellow cathead, blue fish---
Such queer moons we live with

 Instead of dead furniture!
Straw mats, white walls
And these traveling
Globes of thin air, red, green,
Delighting

The heart like wishes or free
Peacocks blessing
Old ground with a feather
Beaten in starry metals.
Your small

Brother is making
His balloon squeak like a cat.
Seeming to see
A funny pink world he might eat on the other side of it,
He bites,

Then sits
Back, fat jug
Contemplating a world clear as water.
A red
Shred in his little fist.

I love that "fat jug", somehow so apt, conjuring up the figure of a small toddler.

I have also, after a long time without the opportunity, had the chance to visit again Stephen Pentz's beautiful blog, First Known When Lost.

The most recent post there has as its theme the slow autumnal realisation of one's own mortality and includes this exquisite poem, which Pentz identifies as a waka. It was, he explains, written by Sami Mansei (early 8th century), translated by Steven Carter, and published in Steven Carter, Traditional Japanese Poetry: An Anthology, (Stanford University Press 1991), page 51:

Our life in this world --

to what shall I compare it?
It is like a boat
         rowing out at break of day,
leaving not a trace behind.

A Bit Catty

Yesterday I had the most modern conversation I’ve ever had. I was in one of those big shabby places they put at the side of motorways so that you can stop and eat horrid food. The buildings usually look like the children of shopping malls, small versions of those elaborate variations on a theme of shed or warehouse.

You usually enter just  as a coach is disgorging or reabsorbing its passengers. This might mean dodging the unexpected dashes of a shrieking crowd of teenagers, all in  trainers and t-shirts, “hoodies” and denim,, the Chinese-made uniform of the no longer uniformed, (the liberation!) or shuffling among the white-shoed elderly, unshrieking but  still inclined to stop abruptly right in front of you, to ponder whether to go back for a cardigan or handkerchief or some other item they may or may not need.

But the conversation I had was when we’d got beyond the entrance and entered the main area, it’s air heavy with the smell of old frying oil. We had each bought a cup of tea and settled ourselves at a table which, while not exactly clean, was at least not smeared with traces of anyone else’s refuelling efforts. I was reading and, as usual, on finding a good bit was unable to resist wanting to read it to my husband. He was looking at his telephone screen.

“Here listen to this”, I said, “this is funny.”

And then it happened - my husband said something that people now say to each other on a daily basis although ten years ago it would have been almost unimaginable.

“Sorry, hang on”, he said, “I just need to finish looking at this cat thing. It won’t take long”.

Mind you, I’m not complaining. I think looking at cat things can only be positive. Or certainly better than most of the alternatives with which I gather the internet abounds.

This, by the way was the cat thing in question. It reminds me of me attempting almost any form of sport.

Recent Reading - Assorted Articles by DH Lawrence

I cannot say DH Lawrence is complete rubbish, because I found The Rainbow and Women in Love striking and intriguing when I read them many years ago - and still remember them as remarkable and unlike anything I'd encountered before, as well as far from amateur. They are each an achievement of some kind, possibly masterpieces, although flawed ones. Kangaroo is also much admired, and I vaguely remember reading White Peacock, which once again was more than competent and certainly full of intensity, (and yes, I know what Yeats said about that).

I think now that the flaws that undoubtedly exist in DH Lawrence's fiction arise from a lack of clarity and rationality in his thought. I came to this conclusion after reading a book called Assorted Articles by DH Lawrence. Sadly, Lawrence's lack of clear thinking becomes horribly obvious when he tries his hand at the essay form. In fact, the result is almost total drivel. Reading this book has been one of my less happy experiences. I picked it up in a secondhand bookshop a while back and I have to admit that I have been regretting it ever since.

I cannot say that I wasn't warned though; I only had to look at the table of contents to see what I was getting myself into, as the titles of the pieces included in the collection provide a pretty good flavour of the book's overall tone:

Do Women Change?
Master in his Own House
Matriarchy
Is England Still a Man's Country?
On Being a Man
Sex versus Loveliness

Essentially, for large chunks of the book I felt as if I were in a crowded pub being bellowed at by a man who hates his opposite sex.

"The real trouble about women..." is the opening sally with which Lawrence begins one essay.

"Women are just part of the human show ... they were never anything but women, and they are nothing but women today, whatever they may think of themselves ... Women are women", he insists in another piece, (is it not breathtaking that anyone paid him to write this stuff - and actually published it? At least Alf Garnett was satire).

"When women start coming to the point, they don't hesitate", Lawrence ventures next, "They pick a daisy, and they say: There must be a point to this daisy, and I'm going to get at it. So they start pulling off the white petals, till there are none left. Then they pull away the yellow bits of the centre, and come to a mere green part, still without having come to the point. Then in disgust they tear the green base of the flower across, and say: I call that a fool flower. It had no point to it!"

Bloody women. 

As Lawrence points out:

"Women didn't make England. And women don't run England today, in spite of the fact that nine-tenths of the voices on the telephone are female voices. Women today, wherever they are, show up; and they pipe up. They are heard and they are seen. No denying it. And it seems to get on the men's nerves. Quite! But that doesn't prove that the women own England and run England. They don't. They occupy, on the whole rather inferior jobs, which they embellish with flowered voile and artificial silk stockings and a number of airs and graces, and they are apt to be a drain on a man's cigarettes."

I think Lawrence may think he is being humorous. Comedy is so often oddly limited to its own time.

But in the last passage I quote above there is something interesting, I think. It seems to me that in it a faint trace of verve is detectable, when Lawrence touches on the subject of clothing. Once again my suspicion that his real vocation was as a dress designer raises its eau-de-nil crepe de chine head. 

And more evidence to support my theory appears when we come to an essay called Red Trousers, (yes, really). In it, Lawrence addresses the problem of "dullness", which he claims someone has suggested in a letter to him is caused by smoking. Lawrence, after several paragraphs of hollering moronically in the manner of the above quotations, suddenly comes alive when he decides that the problem of dullness can be counteracted by deciding to wear bright clothing. And, with the arrival of the topic of clothing, just as in Women in Love when he got going on the Brangwen sisters' stockings, et cetera, Lawrence's writing transforms, becoming relatively vivid and, if not exactly witty, at least not that of a Speakers' Corner bore:

"In the really great periods like the Renaissance ... the young men swaggered down the street with one leg bright red, one leg bright yellow, doublet of puce velvet and yellow feather in silk cap. Now that is the line to take. Start with externals and proceed to internals ... If a dozen men would stroll down the Strand and Piccadilly tomorrow, wearing tight scarlet trousers fitting the leg, gay little orange-brown jackets and bright green hats, then the revolution against dullness, which we need so much, would have begun."

Move over Jean Paul Gaultier, Yves Saint Laurent - David Herbert Lawrence and his "gay little orange-brown jackets" are going to be the next big thing.

Literary Meals, a Continuing Series - EM Forster’s Breakfast on a Boat-Train

In this article by Julian Barnes, about how he came to love EM Forster, I found this vivid description by Forster of a rather horrid meal:

‘“Porridge or prunes, sir?” That cry still rings in my memory. It is an epitome – not, indeed, of English food, but of the forces that drag it into the dirt. It voices the true spirit of gastronomic joylessness. Porridge fills the Englishman up, prunes clear him out, so their functions are opposed. But their spirit is the same: they eschew pleasure and consider delicacy immoral ... Everything was grey. The porridge was in grey lumps, the prunes swam in grey sauce ... Then I had a haddock. It was covered in a sort of hard, yellow oilskin, as if it had been in a lifeboat, and its inside gushed salt water when pricked. Sausages and bacon followed this disgusting fish. They, too, had been up all night. Toast like steel: marmalade a scented jelly. I paid the bill dumbly, wondering again why some things have to be. They have to be because this is England, and we are English.’

Shudder Anew

There has been a bit of back and forth on Twitter of late about horrible modern usages in English. It is an inexhaustible topic, even if, like me, you are quite open minded and think that the English language's great advantage is that it is changeable. Thus, while I mourn the loss of the original meaning of "disinterested", I recognise that it is now used interchangeably with "uninterested" and that this is an example of the language's splendid adaptive powers (although I do still wonder how the original meaning will be expressed - whether a new word will replace "disinterested" or whether we just won't be disinterested any more).

While my husband, only recently released from Brussels bureaucratic servitude and therefore a little post-traumatic linguistically, launched himself at the topic with the energy of a butterfly bursting out of its dry and papery chrysalis, and Lord Steerforth - late of this parish of blog, but recently gone over almost entirely to the Instagram/Twitter dark side - cast in his two bob's worth, I hesitated, unable to decide which of the many newly-minted cliches I hated the most.

I've always found such questions extremely difficult, which was frustrating for my children when they went through that phase all children do of asking their parents, "Which is your favourite food/book/music/country et cetera et cetera". My answer was always, "Hmm, I don't know".

Anyway, this morning I was reading The Times online edition and at last it came to me - the phrase that at present I hate more than any other is this one, used often by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and now, I realise, also in the British press:

"Join the conversation"

I think my main aversion is to the use of the word "conversation". Whatever it is that you are being enticed into - in the case of the ABC, I think you are supposed to tweet madly in the hope that one of your tweets might run along the bottom of the screen during a current affairs programme; in the case of The Times, I suspect you type in your opinions and some fiendish machine somewhere uses what you say and how you say it to target advertisements at you with greater precision - it is not a conversation.  And as for joining, what is it you are joining? A databank? A competition? A black hole?

All of the above, I suspect, which means the phrase should really read not "Join the conversation", but "Join the con."

Bonnard at the Tate

The first exhibition of paintings that I remember enjoying was of paintings by Pierre Bonnard. It was held in one of Canberra's few faintly lovely buildings, the Albert Hall, and although I am inclined to get stuck back in the fourteenth and fifteenth century when looking at paintings, Bonnard won my heart back then. My affection for Bonnard was further cemented by the fact that years later, while working as a translator in an Italian press office, I won over a terrifying boss by mentioning how I'd loved that long ago Canberra exhibition: it turned out that it had been her husband who had organised the entire thing and she was thrilled that anyone still remembered it.

Given this personal Bonnard history, when I saw that a huge Bonnard exhibition was being held at the Tate Modern in London earlier this year, I got very excited and even dragged along some reluctant family members, who later said that they were glad that I had persuaded them to come along.

I found this exhibition one of the most enjoyable I've seen in a while. I hope with this post I can share the pleasure around. While I don't know enough to have anything interesting to say about the paintings that were on display, beyond the fact that I like them, because I do like them, I am sharing here the pictures that I took. Thus, if anyone was unlucky enough to have missed the exhibition, they can scroll through this and get at least a faint idea of what it was like. Where possible I've included the Tate's captions, although sometimes I somehow managed to take a blurred picture of the caption.

Regarding the captions, one thing I noticed was that they quite often drew your attention helpfully to the presence of a figure, whether human or in one case in donkey form, that you might otherwise have missed in the picture. Going through all the pictures, I can also see how they could be grouped in different ways - scenes with checked tablecloths, scenes with tables and bowls of fruit, garden scenes, very often glimpsed through a doorway or window, scenes dominated by yellow or by red or, somehow surprisingly, once one has lodged in one's mind the idea that Bonnard is an artist of warm colours, bluish grey, scenes in bathrooms, self-portraits and so on and so forth.

Pont de la Concorde, 1913-15, oil on canvas, presented to the Tate by the Earl of Sandwich in 1944

View from Uhlenhorst Ferry House on the Outer Alster Lake with St. Johannis, 1913, oil on canvas, (Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh)

Here Bonnard captures one of his favourite subjects: a bustling crowd. The foreground figures are positioned so that we can see through them to the regatta in the harbour. This contributes to the sense of immediacy captured in the energetic brushwork. Bonnard travelled to Hamburg with his friend the painter Édouard Vuillard and other artists at the invitation of Alfred Lichtwark, the Director of the Kusthalle, the city's museum. Bonnard's painting shows his response to new sights and experiences as he travelled.

Young Women in the Garden  1921-3/1945-6, oil on canvas, private collection

An unusual high view point, Bonnard developed inventive compositions to portray familiar surroundings, reminiscent of a snap-shot, allows the seated and standing figures to be held within the same frame. The woman in profile at the right has been identified as Bonnard's companion Marthe de Méligny. The central figure is Renée Monchaty, with whom he had an affair. Bonnard began the painting in the 1920s, then set it aside for more than twenty years. The long interruption may be linked to Bonnard's complex relationship with these two women. Returning to the canvas after the deaths of both de Méligny and Monchaty, he recaptured their presence.

Town in the South of France, (Saint-Tropez), 1914, oil on canvas, private collection

Lane at Vernonnet, 1912-1914, oil on canvas, National Galleries of Scotland

Open Window Towards the Seine (Vernon) ), c. 1911, Oil on canvas, Musée des Beaux-Arts Ville de Nice

Still Life, with figure, (Marthe Bonnard), 1912, Oil on canvas, Kunstiftung Pauline, (private collection)


The Mantlepiece, 1916, oil on canvas, Kunststiftung Pauline, (Private collection)

In The Mantlepiece Bonnard creates a complex visual structure. A stretching woman is reflected in the mirror, with a painted nude on the wall behind her. She stands where the painter should be, but he does not appear in the reflection. Bonnard evidently considered this to be an important work and chose to show it at two prestigious international exhibitions - the Carnegie International in Pittsburgh in 1924 and the Venice Biennale, in 1926.

Dining Room in the Country, 1913, Oil on canvas, lent by the Minneapolis Institute of Art

Bonnard's innovative exploration of colour really took off around 1912-1913. Here the crisp light of the garden contrasts with the responding glow of the interior. Each has a linking element, as light pours in through the doorway while the woman's red blouse extends the interior colouring out into the garden. This was one of the first paintings to show Bonnard's response to the landscape around his house in Normandy.

Coffee, 1915, Oil on canvas, Tate

Mirror above a Washstand, 1908, Oil on canvas

In the early years of the 20th century, Bonnard repeatedly painted scenes of women washing and dressing. While many painters at the time portrayed nudes in contrived positions, Bonnard tended to show more natural poses These may reflect his interest in photography and its ability to capture a casual moment. Here he depicts a dressing table with a mirror that reflects a standing nude and a seated woman beside a chest of drawers. The reflection opens the question of where Bonnard imagined himself, and therefore the viewer, to be placed within the space.

The Checkered Tablecloth, 1916, Oil on canvas, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Caption missing, apologies

The Fourteenth of July, 1918, Oil on canvas, private collection

Detail of above

Bonnard was fascinated by the behaviour of crowds in the street. Made during the First World War, the work shows the celebration of France's national day. The night-time setting makes the scene more intense, as the crowd throngs with soldiers and their partners in front of a bandstand. For many years this painting was know as Armistice and associated with the end of the war. Although the identification has changed, it remains an image of patriotic celebration, captured through urgent brushwork. 

Donkey in the Garden, Le Grand-Lemps, c 1917, oil on canvas, collection of Adrian Sassoon

Detail of above

The family home at Le Grand-Lemps in the Dauphiné in south-east France was a haven for Bonnard. He revisited it each summer to paint and to share family holidays. This work was made during the war. Bonnard painted the tranquil scene aware of the destruction and violence taking place a few hundred miles away.

A Village in Ruins near Ham, 1917, oil on canvas, Centre national des arts plastiques, Paris

This wartime painting vividly reveals how Bonnard responded to contemporary events. It depicts the ruins of a village on the river Somme, the scene of an extended battle during 1916. The destruction makes the location unrecognisable. Between a seated, despairing figure on the left and a cluster of French troops to the right, a Red Cross vehicle can be made out. The watery technique here reflects the desolation that Bonnard experienced on visiting the war zone in May 1917. The painting, along with works by other artists who toured the area, was immediately acquired by the French state.

Preparatory sketchs for 'The Bowl of Milk' c. 1919, graphite on paper

The Bowl of Milk, c 1919, oil on canvas

In late 1918 Bonnard and de Méligny rented a ground-floor room facing a small cove on the Cap d'Antibes in the south of France. Light reflected from the sea pours through the balcony window. Bonnard fixes this powerful effect, so that the strong light leaves many details in shadow, including the face of the woman and the cat awaiting its milk. Associated drawings show how he tested a variety of details and poses before bringing them together in the final composition.

Nude Crouching in the Tub, 1918, Oil on canvas 

This is one of the few paintings that relate to a specific photograph. The differences - apart from the use of colour - are instructive. They show how Bonnard learned from the relaxed poses in his photographs, while giving the figure and her surroundings a more solid presence within the composition of a painting. He absorbed the photographic approach to such an extent that by the early 1920s he no longer needed to carry a camera. He could fix snap-shots in his memory alone

Balcony at Vernonnet, c. 1920, oil on canvas

House among the Trees, 1918, oil on canvas

Add caption

The Open French Window, Vernon, c.1921, oil on canvas, private collection, courtesy of Wildenstein and Co. Inc., New York

The Door Opening onto the Garden, c. 1924, oil on canvas, private collection courtesy of Jill Newhouse Gallery, New York

Made three years apart, these two paintings of the door and window at Vernonnet show how Bonnard worked through colour variations on a repeated theme, suggesting different seasons and different moods. Waking from memory, he emphasised the details that first inspired him: a glimpse of the river perhaps, or light reflected in the door.

Woman at a Table, 1923, oil on canvas, private collection

In Woman at a Table Bonnard uses the small format to focus in on his companion. The viewpoint suggests that we are sharing the meal with the pensive woman, who is so close that her head is cropped by the top of the picture. Her boldly striped dress may have been the artist's original inspiration. He considered the work enough of a success to have it reproduced in the periodical Verve fifteen years later.

View of the River, Vernon, 1923, oil on canvas, National Galleries of Scotland

Basket of Bananas, 1925, oil on canvas

The Violet Fence, 1923, oil on canvas, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh

Stretching across the width of the canvas, the fence divides off the foreground in this painting and contrasts with the exuberant greenery beyond. Bonnard was starting to use strong horizontal bands as a compositional device. During 1923 he was primarily working in Le Cannet, near Cannes in the south of France. At one state he and de Méligny stayed in the evocatively named villa Le Rêve. They bought a house in the town soon afterwards.

The White Tablecloth, 1925, oil on canvas, Von der Heydt Museum, Wuppertal, Germany

Detail of The White Tablecloth

The Bath, oil on canvas, presented by Lord Ivor Spencer Churchill, 1930, to the Tate

The reclining female nude is a recurrent subject in European art. Bonnard's images of de Méligny's therapeutic bathing introduce a new element, showing how different the body looks under water. This is the first, and simplest, of four paintings addressing this theme that he made over the following twenty years. Here de Méligny stretches across the width of the canvas, so that the composition can be divided into a series of horizontal bands: the tiled wall, the white of the bath, the immersed body, the rim and the floor. 

This is one of a series of paintings that Bonnard made of his wife Martha 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. 

Terrace in the South of France, c.1925, oil on canvas, Fonds Glénat, Grenoble, France

Landscape; Young Girl with a Goat, c.1925, oil on canvas, private collection c/o Pissaro and Associates Fine Art

The Table, 1925, oil on canvas, Tate, presented by the Courtauld, 1926

The Dining Room, Vernon, c.1925, oil on canvas, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen

This work belongs to the series of paintings showing the related interior and exterior spaces in Bonnard's house at Vernonnet. As well as filling the canvas with colour, he included two figures, while a reflection in the door may indicate the presence of a third. De Méligny is shown bending towards the dog whose expectant nose peeks just above the edge of the table. The two figures wear clothes that bring together all the colours ranged across the painting. This was an ambitious undertaking and Bonnard controlled the structure through the rhythm of verticals created by the door and window frames.

The Window, 1925, oil on canvas, presented to the Tate by Lord Ivor Spencer Churchill, through the Contemporary Art Society, 1930

Nude in the Bath, 1925, oil on canvas, Tate, bequeathed by Simon Sainsbury, 2006

Flowers on a Mantlepiece in Le Cannet, 1927, oil on canvas, Musée des Beaux-arts, Lyon

Corner of the Dining Room at Le Cannet, the rest of the caption is too blurred

Still Life with Bouquet of Flowers or Venus of Cyrene, 1930, oil on canvas, Kunstmuseum Basel

Landscape at Le Cannet, 1928, oil on canvas, Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

This painting depicts the view from the hill above Bonnard's home. The roof of his house, Le Bosquet, sits at the centre of the canvas, surrounded by trees. The peaks of the Estérel mountains are visible across the bay. A male figure reclines in the foreground, perhaps representing Bonnard himself. Despite his prominent position on the canvas, the use of green and yellow tones means that the figure blends into the landscape.

Nude in the Mirror, 1931, oil on canvas, Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia, Galleria Internazionale d'Arte Moderna di Ca'Pesaro

Nude at her Bath, 1931, Oil on canvas, Centre Pompidou, Paris

A female figure rests on the edge of the bathtub in a moment of distraction. Her face is turned away from the viewer. The pile of clothes on the chair create an abstract pattern. The sense of abstraction is heightened by the tiled design of the floor and the unidentifiable white form that enters the frame from the right hand side of the canvas.

The Boxer, 1931, oil on canvas, Musée d'Orsay, Paris

In this self-portrait, the artist is confronted by hi own reflection in the mirror. He is presented without brush, palette or canvas, which indicates that this moment has been reconstructed rather than recorded His fists are raised, with a dark shadow cast across his face. His stance suggests anxiety or struggle, which challenges the popular conception of Bonnard as a painter of 'happiness'. The viewer is left to question who or what the artist is struggling with.

Self portrait, c.1938, oil on canvas

Self portrait, 1945, oil on canvas, Foundation Bemberg Toulouse, France

Nude in the Bath, 1936, oil on canvas, Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris

Bonnard shifted and adapted his compositions to enrich the emotional and psychological content of his work. This painting depicts de Méligny outstretched in the bath. The measured application of colour in earlier paintings on this theme has given way to a more intense and expressive use of colour.

Nude in an Interior, c.1935, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington

We face a patterned wall, upon which a full-length mirror is hung. An adjoining room is reflected in the mirror, allowing us to see the contour of a female body along the mirror's edge. The composition is formed from a series of interlocking rectangles. This interplay of horizontal and vertical lines suggests Bonnard's increased engagement with abstraction.

The Pudding, c. 1940, oil on canvas, Foundation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel, Beyeler Collection

A Basket and a Plate of Fruit on a Checkered Tablecloth, 1939, oil on canvas, the Art Institute of Chicago

Large Dining Room Overlooking the Garden, 1934-5, oil on canvas, Guggenheim  Museum, New York

This painting shows a domestic scene at Le Bosquet. Bonnard uses intense, concentrated colours - ultramarine and yellow, purple and orange - to suggest different layers of reality. Memory played a crucial role in the construction of the work, which was painted over the course of a year. Many details, including the figure on the right-hand side of the canvas, seem to have an almost ghostly presence.

The Garden, c. 1936, oil on canvas

This painting depicts the artist's garden at Le Bosquet. Bonnard's technique of constructing through memory gave him the flexibility to experiment with both perspective and colour. He creates an explosion of coloured foliage and vegetation. The effect is immersive, placing us as viewers in the garden and inviting our eyes to wander, taking in our surroundings.

Grey Nude in Profile, c. 1938

In the Bathroom, c.1940, oil on canvas, private collection

Blurred caption, apologies

Another blurred caption, involving le Cannet

The Bath, 1942, gouache, pastel and crayon on paper, Art Cuellar-Nathan, Zurich

The Studio with Mimosa, 1939-46, oil on canvas, Centre Pompidou, Paris

Panoramic View of Le Cannet, 1941, oil on canvas, private collection, Courtesy of Wildenstein and Co. Inc. New York

Still Life with Bottle of Red Win, 1942, oil on canvas, Pilar Crespi Robert and Stephen Robert Collection

Still Life with Bottle of Red Wine is one of a number of still-lives that Bonnard painted at Le Cannet in the last years of his life. It confirms the continual inventiveness of his vision, even of the most everyday subject matter. Bonnard's rich palette of red and yellow creates a sense of abundance - in contrast, perhaps, to the significant food shortages that he would have experienced during the war.

Steps in the Artist's Garden, 1942-4, Oil on canvas

Bonnard worked on this painting over two years marked by loss and suffering. Marthe de Méligny died in January, 1942, leaving the artists without his life-long companion. In 1944, Allied forces invaded southern France, bringing the Second World War closer to Bonnard's home. During this troubled period, he found solace in his daily encounter with his[?] nature.

Peaches and Grapes, on a Red Tablecloth, c. 1943, oil on canvas

Bathers at the End of the Day, 1945, oil on canvas, Musée Bonnard, Le Cannet

In this painting Bonnard's depiction of nature dissolves into juxtapositions of colour. Land, sea, and sky become slabs of blue, green, red and white. The swimming figures emerge from the sea in bright hues of red and yellow. Immersed in colour, Bonnard's vision transcends the real world

The Steep Path in Le Cannet, 1945, oil on canvas

Almond Tree in Blossom, 1947, oil on canvas, Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Bonnard could see the almond tree in the garden at Le Bosquet from his bedroom window. 'Every spring it forces me to paint it', he said. This was his final painting. When he was too weak to paint, he asked his nephew, Charles Terrasse to alter the colouring of a patch of ground from green to yellow. Bonnard passed away in January 1947.