The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (62 page)

(1867–1947).
French painter and graphic artist. He trained at the
Académie
Julian and the École des
Beaux-Arts
, his fellow students including
Denis
,
Sérusier
, and
Vuillard
(a lifelong friend), with whom he founded the
Nabis
. From 1891 he exhibited fairly regularly at the
Salon des Indépendants
and in 1903 he was one of the founder members of the
Salon d'Automne
, exhibiting his paintings there regularly from that date onwards. He prospered steadily in his career and his life was quiet and uneventful. Like Vuillard, he is best known for peaceful domestic scenes to which the term
Intimiste
is applied. Bonnard generally painted on a larger scale than Vuillard, however, and with greater richness and splendour of colour. His favourite model was his wife, and some of his most characteristic pictures are those in which he depicted her in the bath (she had an obsession with personal cleanliness and spent much of her time in the bathroom). His other subjects included flowers and landscapes. He also did numerous self-portraits. The late ones show his desolation after the death of his wife in 1940, but in general his work radiates a sense of warmth and well-being. This quality and his lively broken brushwork make him one of the most distinguished upholders of the
Impressionist
tradition.

 
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(1833–1922).
French painter and collector. Bonnat's early works were mainly religious paintings in a
tenebrist
style influenced by 17th-cent. Spanish painting, but from about 1870 he turned increasingly to portraiture. His portraits are usually as glum as his religious paintings, but their almost photographic realism won them an appreciative audience and the fortune he earned painting them enabled him to form a superb art collection, particularly of Old Master drawings. He donated it to Bayonne, his native city, where it forms the nucleus of the Musée Bonnat, one of France's finest provincial galleries. His studio and personal effects can be seen in the nearby Musée Basque. Bonnat was a renowned teacher, his many pupils including
Toulouse-Lautrec
and
Braque
.

 
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(
c.
1505–68).
French sculptor, first documented in 1536 as an assistant to
Primaticcio
at
Fontainebleau
. By 1550 he was in Paris, working on two important monuments for the royal burial church at S. Denis—the reclining effigies and bas-
reliefs
for the tomb of Francis I, designed by the great architect Philibert Delorme, and the monument for the heart of Francis I. Only one other work is documented as being by him—the tomb of Charles de Maigny (1557) in the Louvre—but other works of the period are confidently attributed to him on stylistic evidence, and he seems to have been the foremost French tomb sculptor of the mid 16th cent. His style was elegant and decorative.

 
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Book of Hours
.

A prayer book used by laymen for private devotion, containing prayers or meditations appropriate to certain hours of the day, days of the week, months, or seasons. They became so popular in the 15th cent. that the Book of Hours outnumbers all other categories of
illuminated manuscripts
; from the late 15th cent. there were also printed versions illustrated by
woodcuts
. The most famous Book of Hours and one of the most beautiful of all illuminated manuscripts is the
Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry
(Musée Condé, Chantilly), illuminated by the
Limburg
Brothers for Jean de Berry .

 
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(1500–71).
Italian painter. Bordone was from Treviso, but by 1518 he had settled in Venice.
Vasari
says he was a pupil of
Titian
, but found his teaching disagreeable and soon left (Titian is then said to have stolen his first commission). Whatever the truth of these stories, Bordone's work was certainly strongly influenced by Titian and also by
Giorgione
, ‘for that master's style pleased him exceedingly’ (Vasari). He painted Giorgionesque pastoral scenes and mythologies that now seem rather hard and conventional compared with their inspiration, but they won him great popularity. Commissions came from patrons all over Europe, and he visited France and Germany. His most impressive work is generally agreed to be
The Presentation of the Ring of St Mark to the Doge
(
Accademia
,
Venice
,
c.
1535), a large ceremonial composition in Titian's grand manner.

 
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