1899
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
The Costermonger is a 1899 by Pierre Bonnard, a Impressionism work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see a fruit seller pushing a cart down a Paris street, his back turned to us. Bonnard made this as a print, not a painting—part of a series that caught everyday moments most artists ignored. He liked the small, busy scenes of his neighborhood more than famous landmarks. The colors are soft, almost like a memory. If you like this quiet slice of city life, look up impasto—a technique where paint is laid on thick, giving textures that feel alive.
This suite of color lithographs collected Pierre Bonnard’s observations of city life, ranging from animated street scenes to distant observations glimpsed from the artist’s Montmartre studio window. Rather than memorializing the famous monuments of Paris, Bonnard preferred to depict small neighborhood scenes populated by urbanites shopping and strolling and by vendors selling their wares. The setting for one of the prints is the second-largest public park in Paris, the Bois de Boulogne, which was a popular place for families to relax, stroll, and enjoy carriage rides around the lakes. Two…
The costermonger seen here sold fruits and vegetables from a cart on Paris's streets.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Pierre Bonnard was a French painter, illustrator and printmaker, known especially for the stylized decorative qualities of his paintings and his bold use of color.
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