The primary focus of After the Meal (1925) is a laden table at the center of the image. The two bottles of wine initially catch our attention because of their stark color contrast with the rest of the objects. The woman to the right seems occupied with clearing the table. Bonnard's decision to paint her as literally part of the objects she attends to involves us in her engrossment in her task: The tablecloth, her skirt, and even her legs dissolve into one. Her tiny feet hanging down from the table add to the ethereal nature of her floating form and we are thus transfixed to that space in the painting. We are startled then to see another woman entering the room in the upper-left-hand corner. Her form flickers--floating in and out of the swatches of color which lend her substance. Whether we discovered this second figure by following the direction of the curved back of the other woman or by simply turning our attention to the periphery of the painting is unclear. Either way, the painting's ambiguities now unfold. For example, the two squares beneath the table should logically read as an area of patterned floor, darkened by shadows cast by the table. The difference of their patterning from the rest of the floor and the mirroring of the squares in the cupboard above the table causes our eyes to oscillate around the surface uncertain of what is being represented. Bonnard pulls our vision around the surface and, as he said he liked to do, constructs a painting around an empty space. ©1998 The Museum of Modern Art, New York