拍品專文
Vuillard's first major commission was to paint six panels for the study-cum-cabinet de toilette of Paul Desmarais, a cousin by marriage of the co-founders of La Revue Blanche and the artist's important early patrons, the brothers Alexandre and Thadée Natanson. Aligned as pairs, these panels represented figures in a public garden, dressmakers in their workshops and figures on a terrace. Vuillard preceded the commission by oil studies which he kept for himself, but he also executed the present work, a full-scale version of one of the dressmaker panels, L'atelier de couture I. Vuillard scholar Gloria Groom describes this picture as "so close in scale, palette and composition to the original that it may be considered a variant, possibly made for another collector." (G. Groom, op. cit., p. 21)
The present painting clearly resembles the first of the two Desmarais dressmaking panels (figs. 1 and 2), although the differences are notable. Not only does the independent work appear more energetic and spontaneous, with livelier colors (more reds and pinks), the clarity of its narrative is also subordinated to Vuillard's conscious creation of ambiguity between form, line and color, his virtual obliteration of contour and perspective. Just as Vuillard blends figures, foreground and background into one color-drenched plane, he adds a sense of vertigo to the composition by deploying his antic seamstresses and clients as a depthless frieze. As Groom writes:
The idea of painting figures parallel to the picture plane on a shallow ledge may have derived from Vuillard's participation as a set designer for the puppet-show performances that spring of Maeterlinck's Les sept princesses and La farce du pate et de la tarte at the home of the Conseiller d'Etat, François Couloun...surface, pattern and texture vie with one another as women and children animate the already busily patterned scene within the dressmaking studio. If the courtyard scenes were an andante in the style of Puvis de Chavannes, the workshop scenes are a vivace with a helter-skelter composition of patterns and figures punctuated by the staccatos of workshop stools and the child in red who pushes her way into the feminine foyer in each of the interiors. These pictures of women who move gracefully about their rituals of measuring and folding cloth, and trying on the final products, are similar to a number of Vuillard's early oil paintings showing actresses in their loge (changing room) in the act of dressing or being dressed. Their relaxed yet elegant gestures relate them as well to the models seen in Japanese Ukiyo-e woodcuts such as Utamaro's Girls Preparing Stuff for Dresses (fig. 3). Likewise, the artificial (unrealistic) chromatic range and overlapping of figures and patterned ground could have been inspired by Japanese prints, which Vuillard would have known either from the important exhibition at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1890, or from Samuel Bing's art gallery and luxury publication, Le Japon Artistique. (G. Groom, op. cit., pp. 24, 25, 28)
Even though this painting was inspired by a commission to decorate what Vuillard's fellow Nabis painter Maurice Denis called "a chic bourgeois salon," it owes little to the prevailing high style of art nouveau except, as Elizabeth Easton has noted, its relation to the art nouveau fabric designs produced by the Paris firm of Isaac between 1894 and 1897. In discussing this painting, which she chose as the frontispiece for the catalogue of her 1990 exhibition The Intimate Interiors of Edouard Vuillard, Ms. Easton notes:
The women are positioned parallel to the picture plane, as if in a frieze, and are shown against a backdrop awash in pattern. The forms of the fabric themselves are not organic in the same way as Isaac's, but their overall disposition on the canvas presages the sinuous lines of art nouveau. (E. Easton, op. cit., p. 71)
Just as Vuillard blurs the distinction between his figures and their environment, so does he virtually eradicate any moral, literary or social overtones that might exist in the representation of activities like dressmaking. Unlike the other relatively prosaic scenes of Paris life which Vuillard represented in the Desmarais panels, this activity was one which Vuillard experienced at close quarters on a daily basis, because it was his family's business.
Although Vuillard's mother was registered in the professional directory as a corsetier, she was also a dressmakeer (couturière). The private or household atelier was a hold over from the traditional dressmaking trade that had preceded the invasion of ready-made clothing (confections) produced by factories and distributed through the grand magasins. In her actual atelier, by 1842 at 346 rue Saint-Honoré, Mme. Vuillard employed two females in addition to her daughter Marie. While these girls are often recognizable in Vuillard's smaller oil paintings from 1892-1895, and the lithographs on the dressmaking theme datable to 1895-1986, in the decorative panels, Vuillard multiplied and embellished the female figures with brightly patterned dresses and stuffs, as if to mask the distinction between the employees and their upper-class clients with sufficient time and money to afford customized wardrobes. The working girls are apronless and their clients, hatless. In comparison with his smaller works on the theme, which often showed his sister or an employee bent over her work, the only woman who reads definitively as "employee" in these panels is the woman leaning over her mending in Studio I. Otherwise, one can only surmise from the gestures and poses of the servers and the served. The long-haired woman standing to the right of the seated seamstress in the same panel, for example, may be a client admiring herself and her recent sartorial acquisition in a mirror. Adjacent to her, another woman (client?) holds a dress up for size. At her right a woman (client?) in pinwheel-striped dress looks back on the scene, ignoring the young woman (seamstress?) next to her who takes fabric from the drawer of a chest. The chest re-appears in the center of the second panel separating the seamstress who bends over in search of a button or bobbin, and the woman (client?) in the tiger print dress who observes her struggle. To their left, a trio of women are involved in their toilette. The leftmost figure (seamstress?) assists a seated figure (client?) with her coiffure, while another woman wearing a striped housedress may be waiting her turn to try on the finished garment. (G. Groom, op. cit., pp. 29-30)
This painting will be included in the forthcoming Vuillard catalogue raisonné being prepared by Antoine Salomon and Annette Leduc Beaulieu from the records and under the responsibility of Antoine Salomon.
(fig. 1) Edouard Vuillard, L'atelier de couture I, 1892
Desmarais Collection, Paris
(fig. 2) Edouard Vuillard, L'atelier de couture II, 1892
Desmarais Collection, Paris
(fig. 3) Utamaro, Girls Preparing Stuff for Dresses, circa 1794
British Museum, London
The present painting clearly resembles the first of the two Desmarais dressmaking panels (figs. 1 and 2), although the differences are notable. Not only does the independent work appear more energetic and spontaneous, with livelier colors (more reds and pinks), the clarity of its narrative is also subordinated to Vuillard's conscious creation of ambiguity between form, line and color, his virtual obliteration of contour and perspective. Just as Vuillard blends figures, foreground and background into one color-drenched plane, he adds a sense of vertigo to the composition by deploying his antic seamstresses and clients as a depthless frieze. As Groom writes:
The idea of painting figures parallel to the picture plane on a shallow ledge may have derived from Vuillard's participation as a set designer for the puppet-show performances that spring of Maeterlinck's Les sept princesses and La farce du pate et de la tarte at the home of the Conseiller d'Etat, François Couloun...surface, pattern and texture vie with one another as women and children animate the already busily patterned scene within the dressmaking studio. If the courtyard scenes were an andante in the style of Puvis de Chavannes, the workshop scenes are a vivace with a helter-skelter composition of patterns and figures punctuated by the staccatos of workshop stools and the child in red who pushes her way into the feminine foyer in each of the interiors. These pictures of women who move gracefully about their rituals of measuring and folding cloth, and trying on the final products, are similar to a number of Vuillard's early oil paintings showing actresses in their loge (changing room) in the act of dressing or being dressed. Their relaxed yet elegant gestures relate them as well to the models seen in Japanese Ukiyo-e woodcuts such as Utamaro's Girls Preparing Stuff for Dresses (fig. 3). Likewise, the artificial (unrealistic) chromatic range and overlapping of figures and patterned ground could have been inspired by Japanese prints, which Vuillard would have known either from the important exhibition at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1890, or from Samuel Bing's art gallery and luxury publication, Le Japon Artistique. (G. Groom, op. cit., pp. 24, 25, 28)
Even though this painting was inspired by a commission to decorate what Vuillard's fellow Nabis painter Maurice Denis called "a chic bourgeois salon," it owes little to the prevailing high style of art nouveau except, as Elizabeth Easton has noted, its relation to the art nouveau fabric designs produced by the Paris firm of Isaac between 1894 and 1897. In discussing this painting, which she chose as the frontispiece for the catalogue of her 1990 exhibition The Intimate Interiors of Edouard Vuillard, Ms. Easton notes:
The women are positioned parallel to the picture plane, as if in a frieze, and are shown against a backdrop awash in pattern. The forms of the fabric themselves are not organic in the same way as Isaac's, but their overall disposition on the canvas presages the sinuous lines of art nouveau. (E. Easton, op. cit., p. 71)
Just as Vuillard blurs the distinction between his figures and their environment, so does he virtually eradicate any moral, literary or social overtones that might exist in the representation of activities like dressmaking. Unlike the other relatively prosaic scenes of Paris life which Vuillard represented in the Desmarais panels, this activity was one which Vuillard experienced at close quarters on a daily basis, because it was his family's business.
Although Vuillard's mother was registered in the professional directory as a corsetier, she was also a dressmakeer (couturière). The private or household atelier was a hold over from the traditional dressmaking trade that had preceded the invasion of ready-made clothing (confections) produced by factories and distributed through the grand magasins. In her actual atelier, by 1842 at 346 rue Saint-Honoré, Mme. Vuillard employed two females in addition to her daughter Marie. While these girls are often recognizable in Vuillard's smaller oil paintings from 1892-1895, and the lithographs on the dressmaking theme datable to 1895-1986, in the decorative panels, Vuillard multiplied and embellished the female figures with brightly patterned dresses and stuffs, as if to mask the distinction between the employees and their upper-class clients with sufficient time and money to afford customized wardrobes. The working girls are apronless and their clients, hatless. In comparison with his smaller works on the theme, which often showed his sister or an employee bent over her work, the only woman who reads definitively as "employee" in these panels is the woman leaning over her mending in Studio I. Otherwise, one can only surmise from the gestures and poses of the servers and the served. The long-haired woman standing to the right of the seated seamstress in the same panel, for example, may be a client admiring herself and her recent sartorial acquisition in a mirror. Adjacent to her, another woman (client?) holds a dress up for size. At her right a woman (client?) in pinwheel-striped dress looks back on the scene, ignoring the young woman (seamstress?) next to her who takes fabric from the drawer of a chest. The chest re-appears in the center of the second panel separating the seamstress who bends over in search of a button or bobbin, and the woman (client?) in the tiger print dress who observes her struggle. To their left, a trio of women are involved in their toilette. The leftmost figure (seamstress?) assists a seated figure (client?) with her coiffure, while another woman wearing a striped housedress may be waiting her turn to try on the finished garment. (G. Groom, op. cit., pp. 29-30)
This painting will be included in the forthcoming Vuillard catalogue raisonné being prepared by Antoine Salomon and Annette Leduc Beaulieu from the records and under the responsibility of Antoine Salomon.
(fig. 1) Edouard Vuillard, L'atelier de couture I, 1892
Desmarais Collection, Paris
(fig. 2) Edouard Vuillard, L'atelier de couture II, 1892
Desmarais Collection, Paris
(fig. 3) Utamaro, Girls Preparing Stuff for Dresses, circa 1794
British Museum, London