Nude in Bathtub 1946

Pierre Bonnard made this painting, Nude in Bathtub, with oil on canvas and an amazing eye for color. It’s less about a perfect picture of a body and more about how the colors vibrate and push against each other. I love how Bonnard uses these small strokes, almost like tiles, to build up the image. It’s like he's not just painting what he sees, but also how he feels. Look closely at the way he renders the water around the bather. It's not just blue, it's a mix of blues, pinks, and yellows that create this shimmering effect. It’s as though the painting is made up of tiny little thoughts all grouped together, this one thinking about the pinkness, and this one the blueness. Bonnard, who was a bit older, seems to have picked up where the impressionists left off, but took it even further into his own subjective world. It’s like he’s whispering, “Here’s how I see it, what do you think?”