Skyggen 1942

This work, "Skyggen," was sketched by Pierre Bonnard, likely with graphite, onto a small sheet of paper. You can almost see Bonnard feeling his way through the scene: the threshold of a room, a figure in the foreground, a doorway beyond. I imagine him, eyes squinting, pencil moving, trying to fix what he sees, or thinks he sees, onto the page. The shadow itself seems to become the subject, rendered with these frantic, scribbled lines. Think about the quiet intensity of that act. It's like he's wrestling with something, trying to pin down a fleeting glimpse of light and form. It's the kind of looking that painters do, where seeing becomes a form of touching, of feeling. Bonnard spent a lifetime considering interiority, his and ours. Here, he invites us into his home, his mind, his shadow. It reminds me of Vuillard or even Morandi, artists similarly engaged in the everyday. And it’s an open conversation because, after all, paintings never really finish, we just stop working on them.