FICTION:IGNORE THE STRANGE, somewhat bizarre title; this is an intriguingly impressionistic, lyrical little work, one in which known, as well as less widely known, facts are presented within Goffette's imaginative, subtle meditation of an artist's life.
The subject is French painter Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947). A quiet, unassuming character who believed in beauty as a sacred entity - be it that of a flower, the morning sky, sunlight on a path, or a woman at her toilette, the "mercurial and eccentric" Bonnard emerges as sympathetic, almost romantic. Goffette has written a portrait of an artist which gently and perceptively attempts to enter Bonnard's world without presuming to be intrusively definitive.
Throughout the narrative, which consists of self-contained, near dream-like sequences, Goffette defies conventional biography, defining an artist's response to the world as the way in which he perceives it. At times he uses Bonnard's own words. Although a quiet, even tentative individual, Bonnard knew from an early age that freedom was his goal: "more than anything I wanted to escape the monotony of life."
He had been born into relative privilege; his father had no interest in art. Bonnard completed a first class honours degree in Greek, Latin and philosophy and then announced his intention to study art. His father, the then chief clerk at the ministry of war, was outraged: "What? You would choose the life of an artist? Surely you cannot be serious, Pierre? Come, come, you shall study law, and we shall say no more about this."
Bonnard duly qualified as a lawyer and hated it. His determination to be free won. For him, Paris was inspiration, "his easel." From his childhood he had been alert to beauty, paint box at the ready. Once he discovers the streets of Paris, his eyes are constantly feasting on wonders. He watches people, notes how they move. Yet alone of all the images comes the one that will dominate his life, that of a young girl, nervous about venturing across the bustling Boulevard Haussmann.
Bonnard, then 26, assists the girl who appears to be little more than 16. Marie is 20, a country girl who has escaped the family farm and come to the city against medical advice. Determined to live her life, she is working in a florist. But she tells the young man that her name is Marthe and that she is the daughter of an Italian nobleman who wanted her to earn her living in Paris.
The young artist doesn't care; she is beautiful and will become his muse. He is in love. Goffette makes their meeting in the Parisian horse and carriage traffic as important an encounter as that of Joyce and Nora Barnacle.
"Throughout the winter of '93, Pierre's room blossoms beneath the Paris sky. There are fresh roses in every vase, rich fabrics draped on every chair, silk stockings drying over the wood stove and, behind the screen, a single flower lies between rumpled sheets . . .".
Marthe, as she has become, bathes several times a day. Her body becomes Bonnard's enduring subject, long after she no longer posed for him, he continued to draw and paint her from memory.
Goffette evokes the closed art world of the late 19th and early 20th centuries; Toulouse-Lautrec, the affable dwarf, struts through the streets and makes friends with Bonnard, delighted to have discovered who "PB" is. Jean Edouard Vuillard is a close friend and one of the few artists Marthe likes. When the others call, she hides in the bedroom. In time she isolates Bonnard from his circle, jealous of the moments he spends with others. Her chief rival though, is his art, of which she is admittedly a large part. His family do not approve of her.
Gardens, trees, flowers and water are essential. "Memory," writes Goffette, "is a secret garden. Everything that is missing from our lives, the great void opening up behind us that fills with regret, remorse, with yearning, can be likened to a garden."
At times the graceful, evocative narrative has echoes of Alain-Fournier's classic Le Grand Meaulnes (1913). "The kingdom of childhood," writes Goffette, "lives on within each of us, filled with voices and colours, majestic still although the king has long been dethroned and exiled. It brings life to the deserts of old age, its music gives succour to the blind, its images bring comfort to the deaf . . . Because the child cannot see that he is a child, or sees it only dimly, faintly aware of it from words he has overheard, the blindness of the adult kingdom repels him. Because the child is the bird that he is watching . . .."
Long after her youth and beauty had faded, Marthe continues to appear in Bonnard's paintings as a young woman. Their love was constant, if stifling, as Marthe, never quite secure, became older and mourned her lost beauty. Goffette does not overly romanticise the facts and does mention that Bonnard became involved with a young model, Renee Monchaty. It was obviously an affair but Bonnard did not leave Marthe, he decided to devote himself even more intensively to his art. Renee killed herself.
Bonnard the dreamer is central to what is a celebration of him and also something of a defence. Although Marthe and Bonnard lived together like Joyce and Nora for years before finally marrying in 1925, it was a marriage without contract. She died in 1942, having been with him for 49 years, leaving no will.
A will was written on her behalf and signed by Bonnard who dated it some nine months after her death. Bonnard's lawyer never noticed this, other lawyers did. The lengthy legal battle meant that many of his works were held in storage.
Bonnard's last years were lonely ones. He died in 1947 and the immediate aftermath of his life proves grim reading: "It all came down as it always does to money. It must be said that what was at stake was considerable: six hundred paintings, five hundred watercolours and more than five thousand unpublished drawings by Bonnard."
The art dealer assigned to the case not only put Bonnard's heirs against each other, he tried to track down the heirs of Maria Boursin - Marthe's real name. These heirs were four nieces who proved greedy, not only claiming part of the estate; they asserted rights over all Bonnard's work. The dispute raged for more than twenty years.
It is a dramatic story, and one vividly told. Goffette's technique is impressive; succeeding in being atmospheric, cinematic and dream-like despite the amount of fact. He makes little effort at characterisation and dialogue, relying instead on mood. Above all he gives breath to Bonnard's independent artistic vision which lives through his glorious paintings. Here was an artist who belonged to no school and who always followed his impulses.
Eileen Battersby is Literary Correspondent of The Irish Times
Forever Nude By Guy Goffette, translated by Frank Wynne Heinemann, 136pp, £9.99
