As a student at the Académie Julian, Pierre Bonnard formed close relationships with Maurice Denis and Édouard Vuillard before joining the Nabis in 1888. In 1890, his encounter with Japanese printmaking at an exhibition prompted his departure from traditional perspective and the adoption of bold colour blocks in his prints. His style, characterised by the meticulous rendering of volume and spatial relationships, earned him the nickname “Nabi Japonard” from art critic Félix Fénéon.
Bonnard began experimenting with watercolour in the 1920s, but the medium became more prominent in his work during the following decade. In 1930, while recovering from a hospital stay, his friend and patron Arthur Hahnloser gifted him a set of watercolours. Initially, Bonnard found the transparent medium challenging,as its quick application left little room for correction – a stark contrast to his usual slow, meticulous process.As he once remarked, “Manet could do it. I just don’t have the gift.” Over time, however, he discovered that combining watercolour with gouache allowed for greater flexibility, enabling him to build up layers of colour over several sessions. This technique helped him achieve the tonal richness that mirrored the intensity of his later oil landscapes. Though less formal than his oils, Bonnard’s watercolours share the same attention to detail and compositional balance, making them a significant part of his artistic output.
In 1925, the artist bought a villa in the South of France, in Le Cannet, a town located in the hills above Cannes. Our lively Seascape was most probably painted in the early 1930s along the Côte d’Azur, where Bonnard spent much of his later years. Our Seascape reflects the artist’s growing fascination with light during those years. While he acknowledged his admiration for the Impressionists, he moved away from their strictly objective approach, giving his palette a more personal and expressive role. Ultimately, the explosion of colour offered by our Seascape exemplifies Bonnard’s mastery of spontaneous dashes of a vibrant palette to convey different textures and the transient nature of atmospheric effects.