The Toilet 1908

Curator: This is Pierre Bonnard’s “The Toilet,” an oil on canvas completed in 1908, currently residing at the Musée d’Orsay. What strikes you immediately? Editor: It’s... domestic. In that off-kilter Bonnard way, of course. Not straightforward domestic bliss, more like the feeling you get poking around in your eccentric aunt's bathroom. Cozy, but with a slight edge of unsettling intimacy. Curator: Intimacy is certainly key here. The Impressionist technique obscures any definitive reading of form or space. There’s a visual tension created by the multiple planes, like looking through a looking glass darkly. Note the flattening of space, the interplay between interior and the woman. Editor: True. The woman, reflected but not quite there, a ghost in her own routine. Almost as if Bonnard captured not just the act of washing but the fleeting, almost forgotten moments of self-reflection that accompany it. Plus the colour! Browns, creams, ochres—it feels almost monochromatic. But with surprising touches of colour from those knick knacks in front. Curator: These touches guide our eye—Bonnard’s adept use of colour orchestrates the composition. If one examines it, this picture presents more than meets the eye, in semiotic terms, its the deconstruction and reinvention of a classical subject of painting, here brought to the age of industrial reproduction through impressionistic art. Editor: Perhaps, I see a study of perception, that also questions and plays with how a man might envision a woman in her most personal domain? Bonnard’s made something lasting of that feeling, which is rather touching. I suspect his wife and muse Marthe de Méligny posed for this series; which somehow brings her closer. Curator: A fine observation. His fascination with Marthe echoes in numerous intimate scenes—Bonnard transformed everyday acts into meditations on light, form, and memory. Editor: Exactly! And it transforms mundane moments into something timeless. Curator: Absolutely. In scrutinizing "The Toilet", one uncovers complex visual codes. The intimacy, enhanced by its very style, lingers as the memory of an elusive perception. Editor: Yeah, it really feels like capturing a stolen moment, a bit voyeuristic maybe, but mostly just achingly tender. I like that it asks you to bring your own sense of beauty and narrative into seeing the image.