The dense growth of The Garden (1936) looks like an intricately woven tapestry more than a painting. Our eyes dart about the surface, momentarily confused by how to read the flat patches of brilliant color. As in all of the landscapes, it takes time to adapt to Bonnard's sense of space. It is difficult enough to distinguish between where one bramble ends and another part of the vegetation begins, and what looks at first like a bramble may well turn out to be something else. For example, it takes time to see that the shape stemming from the lower left-hand corner which narrows as it penetrates to the center of the painting, is a road rather than just a snakelike form. Subtleties such as the change of scale between the two pairs of birds--when at last we find them--are slow to unfold before our eyes. But, as we identify the elements of the scene, the two-dimensional patches of paint form a more legible third dimension, and yet Bonnard, as always, manages to insert something that throws off our understanding of what's going on, for example, the rectilinear shape on the right edge of the canvas. If this is a part of the wall of his home, we must question whether we are observing the scene dead on or from a second story window. The answer to this question will alter any spatial understanding of the painting. ©1998 The Museum of Modern Art, New York