Paris, Rue de Parme on Bastille Day

Painted in 1890 — Bonnard's earliest surviving public-subject works — this view of the rue de Parme on Bastille Day is among the most celebrated examples of his Japonisme-influenced early street scenes. The coloured flag decorations of Bastille Day transformed the ordinary Parisian street into a pattern of red, white, and blue that suited perfectly the Nabi interest in flat, bold colour and compressed two-dimensional design. The National Gallery of Art work connects Bonnard's early career to both the graphic design tradition of poster art and the broader Post-Impressionist revolution in pictorial surface. The subject also documents the intersection of civic ritual and everyday Parisian life.

Tricolour flags create bold vertical accents of red, white, and blue against the pale stone of Parisian buildings. The figural street life below is rendered with graphic economy. The composition is strongly vertical and anti-illusionistic, reflecting direct influence of Japanese woodblock print design.