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Lot Essay
From 1900 the work of Vuillard—best known for the flattened space and prodigious patterns of his early Nabis period—demonstrates the artist’s renewed interest in Impressionist techniques and spatial conceits. After the First World War the artist became a highly desired society portraitist. The present work, a study for the portrait of actress Jane Renouardt, demonstrates the broad color palette and fluid application of pigment that characterize Vuillard’s post-Nabis creations.
The combination of friable pastels in Etude pour Jane Renouardt anticipates the tenor of the final oil painting (Jane Renouardt). The pastels’ delicate icy blues and greens collapse pictorial space into the rigid planes of the mirror, while skeletal sweeps of charcoal punctuate the scene and guide the eye. Vuillard here uses the paper backing not as negative space but as a positive component of the composition, much as he did in the watercolor from his Nabis period Femme au lit (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.). This composition also recalls Edgar Degas, who similarly employed pastels both in preliminary sketches and as final works in their own right. As in the present work, Degas’s study in pastel and charcoal Danseuse avec un éventail (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), explores the relationship between figure and surroundings in anticipation of a final painting.
Known for his technical skill, Vuillard explored different artistic mediums including oil and glue-based distemper, particularly favoring the subtlety of pastels, and used a variety of supports in addition to canvas, such as card, board, and paper. As Merlin James notes, for Vuillard there was not a hierarchy amongst these materials, and the artist used “pastel as seriously as he did oil paint” (“Edouard Vuillard: The New Catalogue,”The Burlington Magazine, 2006, p. 340).
The combination of friable pastels in Etude pour Jane Renouardt anticipates the tenor of the final oil painting (Jane Renouardt). The pastels’ delicate icy blues and greens collapse pictorial space into the rigid planes of the mirror, while skeletal sweeps of charcoal punctuate the scene and guide the eye. Vuillard here uses the paper backing not as negative space but as a positive component of the composition, much as he did in the watercolor from his Nabis period Femme au lit (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.). This composition also recalls Edgar Degas, who similarly employed pastels both in preliminary sketches and as final works in their own right. As in the present work, Degas’s study in pastel and charcoal Danseuse avec un éventail (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), explores the relationship between figure and surroundings in anticipation of a final painting.
Known for his technical skill, Vuillard explored different artistic mediums including oil and glue-based distemper, particularly favoring the subtlety of pastels, and used a variety of supports in addition to canvas, such as card, board, and paper. As Merlin James notes, for Vuillard there was not a hierarchy amongst these materials, and the artist used “pastel as seriously as he did oil paint” (“Edouard Vuillard: The New Catalogue,”The Burlington Magazine, 2006, p. 340).