El Moulin Rouge
Pierre Bonnard, 1896
Image not available: work still under copyright
Bonnard painted this scene around 1896, when the Moulin Rouge was one of the most famous entertainment venues in Paris, located on Place Blanche in the Montmartre district. From a café terrace, the viewer looks toward the entrance of the venue, dominated by the windmill outlined in red bulbs that gives the cabaret its name. The vertical composition gives the foreground to tables and passers-by, while the background dissolves into patches of light and colour. Bonnard, associated with the Nabis, worked with flattened planes and intense colour, and here the night darkness is built mainly through contrasts between the red of the lights and the greenish and bluish tones of the evening. It is a picture of urban life that reflects the period's fascination with places of leisure and with the modern city, and it points toward the way the artist turned everyday scenes into subjects of painting.
- Painter
- Pierre Bonnard
- Date
- 1896
- Medium
- oil paint, panel
- Dimensions
- 60 × 41 cm
- Museum
- Collection Bemberg, Toulouse
- Genre
- genre art, nocturne
- Depicts
- Moulin Rouge, terrace