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Washington, United States
loves: you win if you guessed "pets" and "museums". Also books, art history, travel, British punk, Korean kimchi, bindis, martinis, and other things TBD. I will always make it very clear if a post is sponsored in any way. Drop me a line at thepetmuseum AT gmail.com !

Thursday, July 05, 2007

women with dog, 1891

The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute is one of the most beautiful and contemplative collections I have ever visited. Nestled off to one side of Williams College in the Berkshires -- did I tell you all this already? -- its galleries pace calmly among a landscape of old trees and leaf-strewn lawns.

One of the treasures you can see there is Pierre Bonnard's (French, 1867-1947) Women with Dog. In this direct, innocent work you can easily see how he played with the elements of Japanese woodcuts, which were a new exciting find at the time. Things would be imported from Japan wrapped in old woodcuts, and the French artists knew a good thing where they could borrow it. The tilted viewpoint, the particular dry indigo blue -- all borrowed, but the wiry hound is all French.

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