Edouard Vuillard (1868-1940)
Edouard Vuillard was born in Cuiseaux, France in 1868 to a very close-knit family that was dominated by his mother, sister and Grandmother. His father Honore’ Vuillard was a captain in the Marine Infantry and died in and studied painting in Paris and later died while Edouard was still in his twenties. Edouard had one older brother, Alexandre who was born in 1863 and who also opted early for a military career. His older sister, Marie, was born in 1861 and taught Vuillard to read.
Vuillard was a likeable man who inspired affection in those close to him. Though he was reserved and quiet, he was still capable of expressing emotion in sudden violent outbursts. He found some success in his later career, as he began to be commissioned for Portraits, but he continued to live modestly until he died in 1940.
In the beginning of his career, Vuillard used the conventional media usually oil on canvas. But, as he began to get more involved with the Nabi movement, he emphasized the more decorative qualities of his painting. Vuillard joined the “Nabis” (from the Hebrew word for “Prophets”) movement, which werre made up of a group of artists including Pierre Bonnard, Paul Sérusier and Maurice Denis, who were committed to an art that was symbolic and spiritual.
Vuillard left the Nabis by the mid-1890s and began to take interest in the patterns and textures of fabrics, wallpapers and carpets that were readily available to study in his household, which doubled as his mother’s seamstress shop. Vuillard also entertained himself with a job at various theaters’ working with Ibsen and Maeterlinck to construct backdrops for their plays. Theatre was also an important outlet for Vuillard and his predilection for muted and mysterious light effects. In the early years of the twentieth century, Vuillard showed work at the Parisian gallery of the Berhnheim-Jeune family and was commissioned to do larger works like landscapes and portraits as well as his decorative panels, which he is most famous for. This interest in landscapes arose at the turn of the century, and he embraced the inspirational seasides of Normandy and Brittany.
In Vuillard’s early years, he painted most experimental works, usually based on a subject from his immediate environment like his family or seamstresses. The majority of Vuillard’s paintings from the 1890’s are small, intense domestic interiors painted in a style of patterns and somber interacting colors so that the figures are at first indistinguishable from the furnishings. Vuillard was still living with his mother, a seamstress whose customers came to her home and Vuillard frequently painted the female members of his family at work or at rest.
After 1900 Vuillard was commissioned to paint large decorative panels of urban landscapes and parks for his patrons mansions. These decorative panels are lighter and more colorful than his typical work of the “Nabis” period. For the rest of his career Vuillard sought transcendence in scenes of domestic tranquility that reveal the intimacy of the home and often painted his collectors in their favorite rooms.
Later in his life, Vuilard concentrated heavily on portraiture of famous actress, artists and thinkers. He combined with his knowledge and practice of portraiture with his love for interiors. He is famous for having said, “I do not paint portraits. I paint people in their homes.” (Jones 4) Vuilliard was haled for his portraiture and was elected to the Institut de France and lives the rest of his life out in Paris until 1940.
Images
Vuillard, Edoard, Self-Portrait. 1903