Ambroise Vollard, Paris
Sam Salz, New York
Mr. and Mrs. Jerome Crossman, Dallas (acquired from the above)
Acquired from the above by the present owners

Jean and Henry Dauberville, Bonnard, Catalogue Raisonné de L'Oeuvre Peint, 1888-1905, vol. 1, Paris, 1974, no. 260, illustrated ꦜp. 254

Marine is a vivid example of Bonnard's unique ability to weave a varied range of elements in his paintings intoꦺ a congruous and concordant whole. The artist here combines the elements of an active seascape with the bustling activity on shore. Throughout his life, Bonnard took great pleasure in the ocean, both as a sub🎃ject for his art and a place for leisure activities with friends (Fig. 1).

Resonant in the current work is the pertinent influence that Japanese culture and art had upon the artist during this period. By this point in his artistic career, Bonnard was often referred to as le Nabi Japonard. His fascination with the art of the east was in part stimulated by an exhibition of Japanese art held at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1890. Upon viewing this exhibition, Bonnard was intrigued by the fundamental simplicity of Japanese woodblock prints and bold use of color in large, unmodulated patches. By the time he painted the present work, the artist had developed a mature and singular style influenced strongly by those elements that had intrigued him at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts exhibition and informed by the strong influence that Gauguin had over the Nabi. As Sarah Whitfield writes, Bonnard "makes us aware that the principal subject for the painter must be the surface which, as he says, 'has its colour, its laws over and above those of objects" (Sarah Whitfield and John Elderfield, Bonnard (exhibition catalogue), Lonꦐdon, Tate Gallery, 19ꦆ98. p. 15).

Figure 1 The artist (on the right)📖 aboard the boat of his friend an🌜d fellow artist, Paul Signac (in front)