The Bonnard’s spent much of their time on the Mediterranean coast, in their villa in Le Cannet. But Pierre found himself isolated, and snuck off for 6 months in Carcachon.
painting
He developed innovative guerrilla warfare in the long Punic Wars against Hannibal. Also the mystery of a stolen Rembrandt.
After the huge death toll of the war, including 2 major painters, a week in Paris in May resulted in a further 7,000 deaths, and the destruction of public buildings. Hardly a painter in France wasn’t affected.
Paris was under siege from September 1870 to the end of January 1871. Painters commanded its defenders, and showed its distress.
In the late 19th century, painting was centred on Paris. But in 1870-71, the city was all but destroyed after a long siege, in the Franco-Prussian War. The story told in paintings.
Several pro-Empire paintings, including the story of Cleopatra’s seduction of Caesar, as the Suez Canal was being built. Then his most famous painting of all: Pollice Verso.
In the first few years of his career, he was commissioned to paint a series showing stories from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. They are simply brilliant.
They start moving to Le Cannet, on the Mediterranean coast, and marry at last. He returns to painting intimate scenes of Marthe, notably of her in the bath.
A successful general and much-loved statesman, he was responsible for building the Parthenon and Acropolis. Yet he gave his wife to another man, and lived with a courtesan who ran a brothel.
In her later career, she concentrated on social realist paintings of the rural poor, and during World War 1 devoted her time to the relief of refugees in Paris.
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