Review: Vuillard at the Royal Academy

by Rachel Walton BBC News Online

Vuillard was famed for his painting technique

After a grand tour, Edouard Vuillard from Post-Impressionist to Modern Master finally arrives at the Royal Academy of Arts in London.

One of a generation of young experimental Parisian artists during the fin de siecle, Vuillard (1868-1940) was part of the Nabis group.

Formed in the early 1890s they were strongly influenced by Paul Gauguin's use of colour and symbolism and included Pierre Bonnard and Maurice Denix.

Vuillard was truly a master of painting technique, using a broad, intense palette and surface decoration, but he also embraced the new technology of photography.

His instrument was one of the first and most simple of mass-produced cameras, the late-19th-century Kodak. What is special about this exhibition is the rare glimpse of Vuillard's photographs, displayed amongst this incredible collection of paintings.

They were not perfectly framed photos; what he took were snapshots. Yet what they deliver has an air of intimacy and immediacy that remains refreshingly modern.

Vuillard was born in Cuiseaux, about 300 miles from Paris

And that is the best way of summing up his painting too. Many of them just catch a person poking into the frame, or are cropped or angled in a way that leaves the viewer captivated by intrigue.

What is that lump in the child's bed? Is that a cross hanging above it that has been cropped out? Was it meant as an insult to capture only the belly and nose of that man?

They create the sense of motion found in a photograph whilst using painting techniques to explore the characters more intimately.

Finally, as a rare treat, the exhibition highlights the Public Gardens (1894), a series of large decorative panels considered amongst the finest and most complex of Vuillard's decorative designs.

The Public Gardens has appeared publicly in its entirety just once in 1906.

This is a truly eye-opening exhibition with a fresh, contemporary feel to it, and comes highly recommended.

Vuillard from Post-Impressionist to Modern Master is at the Royal Academy, London from 31 January to 18 April 2004.