
I’ve been thinking ahead to the large still life that I plan to be painting soon. This is the canvas that was going to be a large horizontal koi painting until I realized I just didn’t want to do that motif right now. The canvas has since been up-ended vertically and the first early bits of paint mostly covered over with a pale blue (just because that’s the color that was already there). I had decided to do “my version” of Bonnard’s La Salle à manger sur le jardin (regular readers may recall that I am in Monsieur Bonnard’s “classe” now — the one he teaches in the museums and in books from his perch in Heaven).
So I am asking myself exactly what it means to paint a version. Do I use parallel color? If so, as you can see from his sketch above, that means white table cloth, golden-ish room framing greens from the window above. Am I using only his compositional idea? Am I using a window something like the one he peered through in the lovely Villa Castellamare at Arcachon in 1930 (in earlier posts I went “window shopping”) or am I going to use my own humble window that looks out north on the yard, or perhaps the one that faces east and frames the holly tree?
Well, happily I don’t have to decide today. I still have the “intermediate” picture to complete: the tall bright vase of flowers on the green cloth with the blue background. But it’s time to start thinking ahead….
I love that you are in Monsieur Bonnard’s “classe” now — the one he teaches in the museums and in books from his perch in Heaven.
I love his class, Emma. He’s a wonderful teacher. So patient, so kind.