Two Dogs in a Deserted Street

Painted in 1894 on panel and held at the National Gallery of Art, this street scene with dogs belongs to the early graphic phase of Bonnard's career, when his Japonisme was at its most explicit. Dogs roaming a deserted street — abandoned, self-directing, indifferent to human conventions — provided a subject that combined the observation of urban animal life with the compositional opportunities of an empty street. The Nabi interest in the apparently unpromising everyday subject is perfectly embodied here: two dogs in an empty street could be dismissed as genre subject, but Bonnard's treatment elevates it through compositional rigour and graphic precision. The panel support gives the paint a smooth, lacquer-like quality.

The deserted street is rendered with strong, flat zones of colour — grey cobblestones, pale building surfaces, deep shadow. The two dogs create diagonal movement across the composition. The graphic economy of handling reflects Bonnard's concurrent printmaking practice.