Bonnard painted “Summer. Dance” in the vicinities of Grasse on the French Riviera, where he lived and worked on the “Antoinette” villa until early June of 1912. It was designed as a decorative panel with Mediterranean-themed motifs and was a part of the series of decorative panels made in 1911-1912 for Ivan A. Morozov’s house on Prechistenka Street in Moscow. Bonnard set up his easel on the terrace of his house overlooking a settlement on a hill slope and a road leading to the bay. Marthe Bonnard, the painter’s wife in the black dress, plays with their children in the foreground. Certain traits of Japanese art can be seen in Bonnard’s rendering of her figure; this influence is even more noticeable in his art in subsequent years. The white dog sitting on the road in the distance is replicated in another piece by Bonnard, “Summer in Normandy, " which you can also see in the Pushkin Museum. The pair of dancing girls is reused with some minor variations in another decorative panel, “Early Spring in the Country.” In the left foreground there are goats munching bush leaves, a sleeping dog, and a bearded old man wearing a white summer-weight suit and straw hat, sitting and playing a pipe. He plays the role of a shepherd in this pastoral. In the right foreground there are girls standing in dark dresses. A couple of cats by the table make this part of the painting less formal and somewhat energized. It looks like the painter lifts the curtain, allowing the viewers to glimpse a small happy world where everything is set in motion, simultaneously sun-dappled and melting in the summer heat. The scene captured in real life brings to mind some ancient bucolics and conveys the spirit of the Mediterranean. The multicolor boiling mirage is covered with a light smoky haze that mutes the dissonant brightness of the southern colors.