Programs Assistant Erich Brubaker on Pierre Bonnard’s connection to nature and the upcoming nature walk with Carrie Vaughn, Farm Director of THEARC Building Bridges Across the River.
“He admires the eternal beauty and the astonishing harmony of life in the capital cities, a harmony so providentially maintained in the tumult of human liberty. He gazes at the landscapes of the great city, landscapes of stone, now swathed in the mist, now struck in full face by the sun.” Charles Baudelaire, “The Painter of Modern Life” (1863)
In 1918, Pierre Bonnard paints the work The Terrace, also known in French as “Le Jardin Sauvage” (the Savage Garden).
Pierre Bonnard, The Terrace, 1918, Oil on canvas, 62 3/4 x 98 1/4 in., The Phillips Collection Acquired 1935; © 2022 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris
In 2024, Carrie Vaughn watches a bug crawl across her desk.
The common thread: an appreciation for the unadulterated and commonplace beauty of the world around us, especially the allure of untamed nature in all its forms.
“The natural world is everywhere—it’s in us and all around us. Sometimes experiencing nature can be as simple as watching an insect walk across your desk or taking a deep breath after a rainstorm to smell the new perfume in the air,” says Vaughn. She currently serves as the Farm Director of THEARC Building Bridges Across the River, which began in 2010 to increase healthy food access, educational resources, and workforce development opportunities to residents of East of the Anacostia River, and now features 22 raised beds, an 18-tree orchard, a season-extending hoop house, three community compost bins, four in-ground rows, medicinal and culinary herb gardens, and a bee hive.
Carrie Vaughn planting garlic at THEARC Farm (Courtesy of Carrie Vaughn)
Like Carrie Vaughn, Pierre Bonnard spent much of his time outdoors, and wrote in his journal in 1932: “Show nature when it’s beautiful. Everything has its moment of beauty.” He was known to take long walks in nature, absorbing the scenery, pondering his paintings, and making brief sketches before going home to dream up his compositions from memory.
“I love the way Bonnard’s paintings capture the movement, the wild colors, the contrasts that connect outdoors with indoors,” continues Vaughn. “He is not admiring the manicured garden—he salutes the explosion of blooms, the arc of a branch, the patterns, folds and shadows. Every moment in the garden gives me a new experience—a new insect humming or a leaf to taste or even the shock of defeat when plants die or pests invade. It’s primal and beautiful, and it’s everywhere.” This explosion of nature is evident again and again in Bonnard’s Worlds and in our own city.
THEARC Farm
In celebration of Vaughn and Bonnard’s shared love for the savage beauty of nature, the Bonnard Salon will be conducting a Nature Walk of Dupont Circle on Friday, May 24 from 12-1 pm. This special program will have us step out from the gardens painted by Pierre Bonnard and into the neighborhood around the museum, admiring the gardens planted by our neighbors. Together we will channel Bonnard’s eye for color and wild beauty as we learn to spot the joy of unmanicured gardens. Learn more and register (very few spots remaining!) at https://www.phillipscollection.org/event/2024-05-24-bonnard-salon.
In addition to showing just how impactful Pierre Bonnard has been to generations of artists and nature lovers, this program also highlights some of the exciting fruits of The Phillips Collection’s partnership with Building Bridges Across the River, the founding organization of THEARC, where the Phillips has a satellite campus. To learn more about THEARC Farm, visit their website, and check out their calendar of events for opportunities to garden and grow East of the River.