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Pierre Bonnard
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Known for his color-strewn scenes of domestic life, classically posed nudes and penetrating self portraits, Bonnard used a rich variety of media to express his creativity. In his twenties, Bonnard joined a group of artists known as the Nabis (a Hebrew term meaning "prophet"), who were interested in manipulating color and composition to evoke a feeling or mood. Apart from his paintings, he created posters, produced sets of lithographs, designed furniture and stained glass, and painted screens and stage settings.
His cheerfully rendered, if slightly mocking, scenes of everyday life contrast sharply with his voluptuous but complex nude portraits of his mistress (later his wife), Marthe. In many of his works, he enhanced the beauty and charm of a scene by uniting interior architecture and furnishings with exterior landscapes to form a coherent decorative surface.
After 1900, he devoted his perception to the careful scrutiny of nature. His signature style consisting of high color, rhythmically broken brushwork, softened contours and odd perspectives evolved at this point in his career.
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