As someone who has photographed a substantial number of breakfasts, I was rather pleased to find this painting at the National Museum of Serbia in Belgrade. This is Child at Breakfast, painted by Pierre Bonnard in 1900. I’m conscious that there’s a little difference between producing a painting worthy of a national collection and taking a photograph of an avocado muffin in Wetherspoons, but I’m pleased that we agree meals are worth recording. Well, the drink bit anyway in this case.
Bonnard (1867–1947) was a major French painter and one of the founding members of Les Nabis, a group which formed in Paris in the late 1880s. Influenced by Paul Gauguin and Japanese prints, they experimented with colour and pattern. Bonnard’s interest in domestic life became an important part of his work, with meals, familiar rooms and the people around him providing subjects throughout his career. Breakfast was evidently quite sufficient to be getting on with.
The child holding the glass looks quite content and seems to be paying little attention to anything beyond the table and I can appreciate that level of commitment to breakfast. However, television and mobile phones had yet to be invented, so there’s probably a limit to what the child could be looking at. There’s something to be said for recording these small domestic occasions. Not everything has to be grand and exciting. We have a chair, clothes, glass and the moment of a child’s morning from 1900 and that’s rather lovely in its own right.
Not wanting to be outdone, here’s today’s photo of an avocado muffin and coffee from JD Wetherspoon. I don’t suppose that Norwich Castle Museum will want to put this on their walls, but perhaps they should. And indeed on that note, I will make a post from Norwich Castle the next one for my two loyal blog readers to be excited about. Or something like that.