The Letter 1906

Pierre Bonnard created this painting, called "The Letter," likely in France, sometime in the early 20th century. The image shows a woman with her head bowed, writing a letter at a table. We might think about the role of letter writing at this time, before telephones became common and before the advent of email. Letter writing was a key means of communication across distances, and so it was crucial to maintaining social networks and family relations. It was also a gendered activity: middle-class women were responsible for maintaining these connections. The woman is in a domestic interior, bathed in soft light. Bonnard was part of a group of artists called the Nabis, who were interested in capturing intimate, everyday scenes. Like Edgar Degas and other artists of his time, Bonnard was interested in the social rituals of modern life. To understand this painting better, we could look at the history of letter writing manuals and etiquette books from this time. Understanding the social and institutional context of art is key to understanding its meaning.