El gato blanco
Pierre Bonnard, 1894
Image not available: work still under copyright
In this oil on cardboard, Pierre Bonnard shows a white cat walking through a garden, its figure strangely distorted: the body looks flattened and the legs, disproportionately long, give the animal an odd and somewhat comic air, as if it had undergone some unusual transformation. The cat stands out against a wall covered in ivy, whose dark green makes its white coat appear even brighter. Bonnard, who was very fond of cats, arranges the scene on a flat plane with areas of colour that have no clear depth, an approach reminiscent of Japanese prints and typical of the Nabis, the group to which he belonged. Rather than a naturalistic observation, the painting offers a playful, decorative view of a domestic subject. It has been held at the Musée d'Orsay, in Paris, since 1982.
- Painter
- Pierre Bonnard
- Date
- 1894
- Medium
- oil paint, cardboard
- Dimensions
- 52 × 34 cm
- Museum
- Musée d'Orsay, Paris
- Movement
- Les Nabis
- Genre
- animal art
- Depicts
- garden, cat