Nude in 'contre-jour'

By the early years of the new century, the Nabis had separated, and Bonnard travelled, visiting England, Belgium, Holland, Spain and Italy, often accompanied by Vuillard. Together they explored museums and new landscapes. It was a period of reflection, discovery and research. Although there were new movements to observe in Paris alone (in 1905 Fauvism; from 1907-08 Cubism), Bonnard always maintained a distance and independence from them, though not out of hostility. His use of colour, in particular, distinguished his work at a time when the Fauves were applying it in almost violent hues, and the Cubists were treating it in greys and earth colours. In comparison with the avant-garde, Bonnard appeared to be reverting to Impressionism. In Nude in ‘contre-jour’, in the interweaving of colours, like wools, he seemed to employ the techniques of Renoir and Monet.

While Bonnard’s paintings take up the themes and sometimes the techniques of the Impressionists, they are very different in composition and treatment: Nude in ‘contre-jour’, like many of his later pictures, includes a small mirror, a device that allows him to represent space within a flat idiom.