Autumn. Fruit picking

Bonnard painted a number of art works for Ivan Abramovich Morozov’s mansion which combine decorative value and real life experience, quite characteristic of monumental canvases. In his panels Early Spring in the Country and Autumn. Fruit picking, the painter uses a delicate palette of subtle exquisite shades, distributing the color spots across the plane. Both art works are characterized by a two-dimensional decorative style which makes them look like ancient tapestries (a similarity that is also evident in the choice of seasonal motifs). Bonnard’s past experience of painting scenery for Paris symbolist theaters – Paul Fort’s Art Theater and Lugné-Poë’s Théâtre de l'Œuvre – undoubtedly helped him to complete these panels. The panel Autumn. Fruit picking, arranged vertically, renders the harvesting scenes at Bonnard’s family estate Le Clos. It deserves close examination: among the colorful splashes, you will soon notice a little girl with a basket of grapes, a woman rushing somewhere, a donkey pulling a wagon, and a few people in white garments gathering crops. A treetop painted with large pink-green spots emerges in the center of the composition like a fountain. A deep black shadow around the tree intensifies the green color. Green and blue shades give the black color a special tone. From the center to the periphery of the composition, Bonnard gradually starts using staccato strokes, applying a glittering spectrum of colors. In addition to Bonnard’s rich color palette with open and saturated pink, green, brown, and black muted shades, he uses varied painting textures. These methods allow him to glorify the beauty and power of nature with his pantheistic perception of the world around him.