Paysage du Midi

In 1926 Bonnard purchased a small villa located on a hillside overlooking Le Cannet, a town located several miles north of Cannes on the Côte d'Azur. He called it 'Le Bosquet' ('The Grove'). Before 1940, Bonnard divided his time between 'Le Bosquet' and another house in Vernonnet, Normandy, as well as an apartment in Paris. During the German occupation he remained in Le Cannet. Gasoline shortages prevented him from travelling, and even from taking his daily trips to Cannes, so he was limited to visiting local sites within walking distance. The landscapes that Bonnard painted during the war feature 'Le Bosquet', and its immediate environs. While he built his studio on the north side of his house to catch the ideal painter's light, his favourite panorama was that seen from his balcony on the opposite side of the house, where he could look downhill and southwest to the red-roofed buildings of Le Cannet, and the outline of the Estérel mountains in the distance. The present painting shows this landscape, in the rich and still glowing colours seen in the fading light near the end of the day, with the gray-green edge of the artist's balcony visible along the lower edge of the composition.