Promenade à ânes - Pierre Bonnard

A charming 1893 lithograph by Pierre Bonnard, originally featured in a musical score, capturing a lively scene of children on donkeys.

This lithograph by Pierre Bonnard, titled Promenade à ânes, originates from the 1893 publication Petites Scènes familières pour piano. Bonnard, a founding member of the Nabis group, applied his characteristic approach to line and form to this musical score. The image occupies the upper portion of the page, presenting a whimsical scene of children riding donkeys. His draughtsmanship here is loose and spontaneous, favouring expressive gesture over anatomical precision. The figures are rendered with quick, shorthand strokes that capture the energy of the movement.

Bonnard was deeply involved in the graphic arts during the 1890s, often collaborating on posters, book illustrations, and music scores. His work from this period frequently displays a playful, decorative quality that aligns with the Nabis interest in flattening the pictorial space. The scene is framed by a rough, hand-drawn border, which reinforces the informal, sketchbook aesthetic of the composition. Below the illustration, the musical notation for the piano piece is presented, creating a dialogue between the visual narrative and the auditory experience.

The composition is notable for its lack of traditional perspective. Instead, Bonnard arranges the figures across a shallow plane, allowing the viewer to focus on the rhythmic repetition of the donkeys and their riders. This approach reflects his broader interest in Japanese woodblock prints, which often utilised similar spatial arrangements and simplified forms. The work provides a glimpse into the collaborative creative environment of late nineteenth-century Paris, where fine art and commercial design frequently intersected. By integrating his illustration directly into the musical score, Bonnard creates a unified object that functions as both a visual and a functional piece of ephemera.