Pierre Bonnard: The Colour of Memory Hardcover – March 26, 2019

Wonderful catalogue of what must be a spectacular show! Many old favorites are reproduced here, and I saw some new ones too. Fabulous book about a sadly underestimated artist. The curatorial essays are a bit dense, I think, but some are worth the work of plowing through.

Beautiful Bonnard art book!

I love Bonnard, but I don't think his paintings are very well represented in this book. The small reproductions illustrating the essays are fine, but the plates are not well served by the book's design. These plates are all placed at the very bottom of the pages, with lots of glaring white space above them, so that the horizontally oriented ones look completely squished, and there's absolutely no sense of space or perspective such as you get from the real paintings. The blank white pages nearly overwhelm the prints, again especially the horizontal ones. In the pages with essays this is less noticeable because of the impact of the print. But I don't see the point of these large white spaces, rather than a less aggressive shade for the background. I'd been hoping that the book would help me with a beautiful and very large Bonnard, a painting of the scene from a terrace, in the Phillips Collection in DC, where color is specifically used both to define and disguise horizontal distances and depth perception. That isn't in the book, of course, but I had thought maybe a good treatment of Bonnard's uses of color would help me see that work more clearly. Not the case, unfortunately. I wish I could have seen the exhibit. Because of its design, the catalog doesn't really help a reader see what Bonnard was really about.

A delightful books with many images and excellent writing, I enjoyed the French titles of his paintings along with English titles, too, although I think there is always the chance of exact translation might not be possible. There are so many paintings that cover Bonnard's long career with many images never seen before in books. The writings and critiques are interesting from glorification to demeaning. Some espousing Matisse as the master of color but I would disagree. The book is a great addition to the library of those who enjoy Bonnard's love of quietness and rich colors.

I have just received this catalogue for a show I will not be able to see, so it was a great disappointment to discover that the color reproductions are very dark and drab. And this is a show about the Bonnard’s use of color! Regardless, i look forward to enjoying whatever is here to read and see. I can not review anything but the color of the plates, as I have not read anything yet.

Fine selection of images displaying Bonnard's development. Excellent essays on the artist's life and work. Highly recommended.

Good quality publication with nice reproductions

Loved the articles written about Bonnard; the images of the paintings are good quality, especially the close ups of parts of the paintings. Would recommend this book to anyone, especially artists. I use it as a tool to try and capture some of the same techniques as Bonnard used when I paint in oils.

the reproductions are not as good as previous books

This is a lovely catalogue with many coloured reproductions of Bonnard's wonderful paintings and interesting writings also. I would love to see the show but probably won't get to London so this is great to have.