Bonnardel Alexandre, François (1867-1942) - The Chrysanthemums. Oil On Canvas, Around 1925.

Alexandre, François BONNARDEL (1867-1942) - The Chrysanthemums. Floral composition in a copper vase, around 1920-1930.
Oil on canvas, signed lower right: "A.F.Bonnardel." - Not dated.
19th-20th century French painting school.
Dimensions without frame: H.: 60 cm; - L.: 73 cm. Modern frame with molded wooden sticks and listel.
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With a seasoned plastic sobriety, this Floral Composition from which emanates a feeling of gentle tranquility reveals the plastic qualities specific to this artist-painter representative at the turn of the 20th century of the revival of the Lyon School of painting. Balance and plenitude of forms, firmness of design served by great integrity of execution, accuracy of values and delicate chromatic harmony individualize this "still life", ingeniously declining the motif of Chrysanthemums.
Sliding pianissimo from the second to the foreground, a soft luminosity halos with its silvery reflections a carefully arranged fabric, envelops a piece of earthenware surrounded by a "Chinese border", facets the copper luster of the vase and sprinkles the floral composition with shimmering tones. Muted with a reddish-brown, the background of the painting highlights its carefully elaborate arrangement: standing out against a noticeably inclined plane (drapery) creating an effect of spatiality, the vase occupies the center of the canvas; its verticality is matched by the horizontal blossoming of the bouquet; floral elements (extended or cut stems) form a link between each shot.
Although very simple, Alexandre-François Bonnardel's color palette is no less elegant, refined and even melodic in chromaticism. In fact, this Floral Composition with Chrysanthemums affirms his talents as a colorist. Variegated with a sparkling white, dotted with a luminous yellow, nuanced with pink, frilled with carmine red, Pompon, Classique, Marguerite and Tokyo chrysanthemums pour out their blooming blooms punctuated by the emerald green of their leafy stems. To the correctness of the chords of its tones is associated a free touch, of a removed bill not devoid of an "impressionist" gesture.
Although undated, in view of the artistic career of A.-F. Bonnardel -see his biography- situate this painting in his pictorial production of the 1920s. Decade during which his delightful, intimate "Interiors" of Boudoirs or Workshops with walls, screens, carpets, ..strewn with pretty floral bouquets with deliciously old-fashioned charms.
 
-A recognized artistic figure of the Lyonnaise School of Painting from the years 1890-1930: Alexandre, François Bonnardel (Pajay, Isère 1867-Lyon, Rhône 1942).
Born in the small rural hamlet of Pajay (Isère), on September 6, 1867, from a family of modest farmers, nothing seemed to predestine Alexandre-François Bonnardel dit Francisque to a flourishing artistic career marked out in the metropolis of Lyon as in the Parisian capital with honorable distinctions.
   In February 1891, enrolled at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Lyon, he joined the studio of the painter Antoine, Christian Zacharie (1819-1899) - then that of Jean-Baptiste Poncet (1827-1901) - whose rigorous teaching he followed. venerable institution, quickly conquered by its first works presented simultaneously at the Salon of the Society of Lyonnais Artists the "flattering appreciations" of the critics, the favors of the local Bourgeoisie attending this national event. Thus, between 1895-1899, in "an upward march", a 3rd, 2nd and 1st medal will reward, "welcome (have) the blossoming and blooming of a beautiful talent" of which all "hoped, for a next Salon, (...) some works of vast design which will put M.Bonnardel among the great painters of Lyon" (L'Echo de Vienne et de la region, 1895).
After his debut at the Salon with a "Still Life" (1891), a "Landscape" (1895), portraits (1895-1898) most noted for their "excellence in drawing and modelling", their "large and solid execution" allied to a "science of skin tones" or genre scenes "finely observed and wittily rendered" (Distracted Reader, 1897. Caquettage, 1898), the This canvas "solicited" as a successful piece" was therefore presented in 1900 under the number 65: "A session at the Municipal Council of Lyon in 1899". Considered as a "Tableau d'Histoire -d'Histoire locale-", this important composition acquired by the City consecrated the artist. The latter, succeeding in the words of the press at the time this "tour de force of work and accuracy" where "M.Bonnardel not only showed what he is, an excellent portrait painter, but also known as a director of the first order".
At the turn of the century, then at the height of his artistic career (appointed the same year Professor of the Living Model Class at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Lyon, Advisor to the Bureau of the Society of Lyonnais Artists), A.F. Bonnardel set out to conquer the Parisian capital. shelter and bread, 1910; The Old Shepherd, 1911; Miseries, 1912; The Exiles, 1916) were honored in 1909 with a Medal of Honor (Sit Digna Labori merès).
In another vein, where his qualities as a fine colorist unfold with "his usual virtuosity" (Désiré France, 1926), he will produce "Studies", small "Interior Scenes" (Tricotteuse, 1902; Indolence, 1905) - "real jewels" (Léon Mayet) poetic - in the wake of which we must place his pictorial production of the 1910s. 920-1930. Dismissed from his post following a stormy adulterous relationship with one of his students, A. F. Bonnardel devoted himself until his death in December 1942 to pictorial compositions freely declined, removed with verve, spontaneity and an undeniable sureness of craftsmanship. Under his seasoned brush with the "modernist" precepts of the time will hatch, treated in a post-Impressionist note, intimate scenes (Interior, 1920), mysterious portraits of naked women (Young woman at her toilet, Dormeuse, 1930) or seized, dreamy, in costumes from the Restoration period (Elegant 1830, La Liseuse distraite), "remarkable" Compositions floral paintings ("Au Jardin", "Dalhias") or Still Lifes with Fruits ("Les Oranges", Peaches d'Autumn", 1933-1942).In this brief evocation of the artistic career of this multi-faceted painter, we cannot omit his picturesque and "magical" decorations created for the Grand Théâtre de Guignol to which he will restore his letters of nobility of yesteryear between 1910-1930.
Sitting on the walls of museum institutions (Lyon, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Paris, Musée d'Art Moderne), in French and European private collections, present on the Art Market (Christie's, Artcurial, Drouot sales) or even subject of university research (Repelin François, Alexandre-François Bonnardel, 1867-1942, Master's thesis, Lyon, 1982), the work of this artist-painter now rediscovered e and reassessed to its proper extent occupies a meritorious place in the cultural and artistic landscape of French painting from the end of the 19th to the middle of the 20th centuries.
  Without predicting that during a sale (Sotheby's Paris, 2005), one of his "Nature Morte aux Oranges" would go for 18,000 Euros, A. Saget wrote in 1905 in an art magazine: "M. of his emulator Pierre Combes-Descombes (185-1966)..- opens to our old Latin homeland infinite horizons of triumphs.Honor to all these sublime fronts, to all these laureate heads! It is to them that Lyon will have to walk one day in the triumphal way of Progress which leads to the splendid Temple of Eternal Beauty" (La Houle, May 1905, p.17).

Bibliography: Bénèzit, Emmanuel, Dictionary of French painters, sculptors, designers and engravers, Grund, 1939, Volume I, p. 665; -Schurr, Gérald and Cabanne, Pierre, The Little Masters of Painting, 1820-1920, Ed.de L'Amateur, 2014, p.137; -Vallacher, Guy, "Alexandre, François Bonnardel", in: Les Amis de Lyon et de Guignol, n° 250 of July 2010.
Printed sources: notably, L'Echo de Vienne et de la Région (1895-1908); The Journal of Vienne and Isère (1898-1910); The Passe-Temps and the Parterre united (1895-1906); The Journal of the Arts (1904-1930); The Revue des Beaux-Arts (1921-1926); Public Safety, 1909-1937; Catalogs of trade fairs,...