The Green Blouse

Painted in 1919 and held at the Metropolitan Museum, this figure in a green blouse is characteristically Bonnard in its fusion of portraiture and domestic still life. Marthe, Bonnard's constant companion and primary model, appears in varied domestic contexts across these years; a specific garment — a green blouse — becomes both the painting's nominal subject and a vehicle for chromatic exploration. By 1919 Bonnard had fully developed the colour approach that placed him as the heir to both Impressionism and Cézanne's chromatic rigour. The green blouse against the surrounding interior environment creates the warm-cool dialogue central to his mature practice.

The green blouse is rendered with varied touches that create a luminous, fabric-like texture rather than flat colour. The surrounding interior environment — table, objects, background — provides contrasting warm ochres and reds that intensify the blouse's cool green. Light falls from an indeterminate indoor source.