I agree with you that the painter’s only solid ground is the palette and colors, but as soon as the colors achieve an illusion, they are no longer judged and the stupidities begin.
—Bonnard to Matisse, 1935

In short, there is something abject and sinister about Bonnard’s late bathers… . The metamorphosis may be gorgeous, but it is also a kind of elegant pourriture, exquisite rot, canvases shimmering with the iridescence of putrefaction, glowing with the ooze of the informe. It is significant that Bonnard’s work is at its best when he kills off or mutilates his subject: Marthe dismembered or floating in deathlike passivity is the heroine of his most exciting canvases.
—Linda Nochlin, Art in America July 1998

There is decadence that excites and decadence that enervates. Bonnard’s is the second sort: edgeless, nerveless, weird, fussy. He isn’t mindless, exactly, but he withholds his mind from his transactions with painting. For thought, he substitutes maundering on autopilot. His compass is a vague tastefulness. This comforts people who dislike thinking. I submit that such people are already comfortable enough, on their own lookout, and should not be indulged.
—Peter Schjeldahl, The Village Voice, July 28, 1998

Who could have imagined that in 1998, more than half a century after the artist’s death, the paintings of Pierre Bonnard (1867–1947) would still be a subject of controversy? Yet in certain influential quarters