Naked Muse of Pierre Bonnard

Naked Muse of Pierre Bonnard

The little theatre of the passions of these two people is something beyond the limits of an ordinary biopic — it is rather a sort of film noir, or decadence, or psychological thriller. The drama of Pierre and Marthe’s love and life presents a soul-stirring storyline illustrated with hundreds of the artist’s pictures. To label their style, art critics even had to invent a special term, intimism.

But even for all the frivolousness of those days, it is absolutely astonishing how careless the man was as for finding out the basic information about his mistress, although they lived together for years, and breathed the same air. It would not have been that bad if it had only been about her age — but “for over three centuries”, Bonnard remained unaware that the aristocratic Marthe de Méligny was but a disguise for the real and quite prosaic Maria Boursin! Edmonde Charles-Roux in L’Irreguliere ou mon itineraire Chanel characterises her as a midinette faffing around in a funeral wreaths shop. She was Marthe — that was enough.

She had left her previous life behind, in the country town of Saint-Amand-Montrond. She, a carpenter’s daughter, had left the place for Paris breaking off the connection with her family. For years, legalizing the relations between Marthe and the young man of a higher social rank was out of the question — despite the magic word de that Marthe had added to her new name when she started her new life. Bonnard never insisted that his soulmate disclose her details. Nevertheless, he did suspect something — perhaps, that was the reason why he wanted no truth. ‘A marriage for love is one when a wealthy man marries a pretty and rich girl' — that is one of Bonnard’s aphorisms.