Vuillard Lecture Program
February 1, 2003
East Building Auditorium
Held in conjunction with the exhibition
Édouard Vuillard
Introduction
Philip Conisbee, senior curator of European painting and curator of French paintings, National Gallery of Art.
Vuillard and the Louvre
Gloria Groom, David and Mary Winton Green curator in the department of European painting, The Art Institute of Chicago
Throughout his life, Vuillard was a frequent visitor at the Louvre. His journals from 1888-1889--filled with rapid sketches of works by artists as varied as Perugino, Ingres, Rembrandt, Ter Borch, and Poussin—attest to his faith in past masters. His daily strolls through the galleries offered inspiration, challenge, solace and, occasionally even companionship. Sometimes, Vuillard's borrowings show up in subtle ways: Veronese-like greens and pinks, La Hyre-like decorative line, Vermeer-like light. At other times, he borrowed directly and simply recast past art into scenes of modern life. This is the case with Vuillard's commissioned work for the American Marguerite Chapin (The Library, 1911–1912) and his last decorative project for the Swiss Camille Bauer (Au Louvre, 1921–1922). Both are experimental and atypical in his oeuvre, and both raise questions regarding Vuillard's changing patronage group, evolving sense of "décoration," and response to "Culture" before and after World War I.
Deliberation and Accident in Nabis Photography
Elizabeth Easton, chair, department of European painting and sculpture, Brooklyn Museum of Art
The Nabi painters came of age and began their artistic careers in the late 1880s, at the same time as the invention of the Kodak camera. The portability of the Kodak, and the ease with which it could be used, made it one of the most exciting inventions of the late nineteenth century. Photography, thanks to the Kodak, became accessible not only to professionals in this burgeoning field, but also to amateurs from all walks of life. The Nabis caught this fever of excitement: as family archives are beginning to reveal, a significant number of the Nabi painters, including Pierre Bonnard, Maurice Denis, and Felix Vallotton, in addition to Vuillard, tried their hand at taking photographs. Each of them experimented with the medium with varying degrees of commitment, interest, and success. This paper will address the different approaches of Vuillard and the artists in his circle to the instrument of mechanical reproduction.
Vuillard and Modern Landscape
Kimberly Jones, assistant curator of French paintings, National Gallery of Art
Although he is best known for his paintings of interiors, Vuillard was also a skilled practitioner of the art of pure landscape. After 1900, landscape took on an increasingly prominent role in the artist's oeuvre, sparked by his extended stays in the countryside in the company of his friends and reinforced by his experiments in photography. What is most striking about Vuillard's landscapes of the early twentieth century is their startling modernity. They reflect a visual audacity, in form and technique, that contrasts sharply with the more elaborate works he produced in Paris. This is particularly true of the paintings produced during his stays in Brittany in 1908 and 1909 that seem to pay due to impressionism even as they flirt with true abstraction. In these paintings, small in scale yet daring in execution, Vuillard's art enters a new phase of modernity.
Vuillard and Bonnard: The Trap of Intimism
Belinda Thomson, independent scholar, Edinburgh, Scotland
The tendency to pair Bonnard and Vuillard as intimists was a way of separating them from the other Nabis and of tying down what was distinctive and appealing about their early work. After 1900, as the Nabi group dispersed, exhibition organizers, critics, art historians, and collectors continued to bracket Vuillard and Bonnard together under this label. This paper examines the origins of this joint labeling and points up its strengths, limitations, and possible long-term effects on the artists concerned. It considers specific exhibitions and projects that paired the two artists and the critical responses they elicited. Referring to their other commentators, it asks whether presenting Bonnard and Vuillard as intimists inhibited a fuller understanding of their achievements, glossing over differences and distorting their later reputations. The paper ends by considering the ways in which Vuillard's career was presented in his 1938 retrospective and in the first posthumous monographic studies, and how Bonnard responded to that enshrining of his comrade's reputation.
Panel Discussion