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Lot Essay
Painted circa 1895, En promenade filled with the bustle and movement of the streets of Paris in the late Nineteenth Century and yet reveals his mature understanding of the painting vocabulary of the great Nabis artists.
The tightly-huddled group of figures to the left of En promenade lend the picture a sense of intimisme wholly suited to Vallotton's affiliation with the Nabi painters, especially his friends Bonnard and Vuillard. In that section alone, Vallotton shows the same interest in people of the day that is visible in his 1895 picture, Bal de l'Opéra. Meanwhile the openness of the space to the right, which emphasises the impression of movement and dynamism of the figures, hints at the influence of Japonisme and of his woodblocks while also prefiguring the almost schematic use of bold, dominant planes of colour that would feature in some of his most celebrated paintings from four years later, such as Sur la plage, Dieppe (sold Christie's, Zurich, 5 December 2000, lot 46, CHF2,937,500).
The restraint visible in this use of the open right hand portion of the painting is emphasised by comparison between this work and Scène de rue, painted during the same period around 1895, which shares compositional similarities and yet does not fully utilise the space in the same bold way. In En promenade, he has pared away the details of the street itself, reducing it to an almost geometric simplicity as opposed to the cobbles and details in Scène de rue. En promenade is thus filled with the planar, Synthetist manner that Vallotton so appreciated in the Nabis, and which he developed to new extremes. This stylistic difference aside, both Scène de rue and En promenade share the same interest in the frank depiction and celebration of life in the streets of Paris. In En promenade, the girl's hand and foot show her to have been captured in mid-stride, giving the painting a sense of spontaneity similar to that of a photograph. This also heightens the informality of the scene, the sense that it is an intime moment, despite being outdoors. These are everyday people caught at an everyday moment, and yet it is this that lends the painting its timelessness and honesty.
This daring composition appears to owe much to the influence of Japanese art, and especially of the woodblock prints which had so influenced the Nabis. Vallotton himself came to know the Nabis largely through his revival of the woodcut. In no time, he had become a master in the medium, and was selling prints and illustrations, an occupation that placed him in direct contact with Toulouse-Lautrec. It was mainly through his work for the literary review, La Revue Blanche, produced by the Natanson brothers, who are captured in oil portraits by Vallotton, that he came into contact with Vuillard and Bonnard, as well as Toulouse-Lautrec, and in turn, through them, he was introduced to literary luminaries such as Emile Zola and Stéphane Mallarmé, with whom he became friends. Thus at the time that En promenade was painted, Vallotton found himself at the centre of an exciting and controversial group of artists and writers who were challenging all the givens of their day, laying siege to the all-too-comfortable aesthetics of their age.
Considering this esoteric composition, it is perhaps no coincidence that in 1892, Vallotton had exhibited in the first Salon de la Rose+Croix, although the scene of modern life here shown would have been an anathema to Josephin Peladan, the founder of that salon. The fact that he had exhibited then, with many of the other Nabi artists, much reflects the evolution of Vallotton's art, which had shifted away from the stricter, more mystical side of the Nabi aesthetic (Nabi itself derived from a Hebrew word for prophet), towards the intimisme of Vuillard and Bonnard. Despite this shift in interest, the manner of painting in En promenade remains clearly influenced by the original Synthetist precepts of the movement. Through the various artistic and literary circles with which Vallotton was now associated, he found himself friends, and involved in projects, with many of the most revolutionary minds of the day. Like many of the people in Mallarmé's circle, Peladan had been interested in Communism; Vallotton also helped to illustrate the anarchist Zo d'Axa's memoirs. This political side to his life is extended in his paintings of street scenes, of real life. There is a democratisation at work that results in a frank and engaging painting that appears to tap into the very spirit of life at the end of the Nineteenth Century.
It is this cutting edge content, as well as the charming composition appearance of En promenade, that resulted in its being almost certainly exhibited in Siegfried Bing's famous Salon de l'Art Nouveau in 1896, which had also been decorated with stained glass commissioned, by Bing himself, from Vallotton, alongside Bonnard, Denis, Sérusier and Vuillard. En promenade then passed into the collection of Jos Hessel, one of the partners in the Bernheim-Jeune gallery and an important patron of the arts and of the Nabis in particular, who owned masterpieces that are now in museum collections around the world, including the Metropolitan Museum, the National Gallery of Art and the Cleveland Museum of Art.
The tightly-huddled group of figures to the left of En promenade lend the picture a sense of intimisme wholly suited to Vallotton's affiliation with the Nabi painters, especially his friends Bonnard and Vuillard. In that section alone, Vallotton shows the same interest in people of the day that is visible in his 1895 picture, Bal de l'Opéra. Meanwhile the openness of the space to the right, which emphasises the impression of movement and dynamism of the figures, hints at the influence of Japonisme and of his woodblocks while also prefiguring the almost schematic use of bold, dominant planes of colour that would feature in some of his most celebrated paintings from four years later, such as Sur la plage, Dieppe (sold Christie's, Zurich, 5 December 2000, lot 46, CHF2,937,500).
The restraint visible in this use of the open right hand portion of the painting is emphasised by comparison between this work and Scène de rue, painted during the same period around 1895, which shares compositional similarities and yet does not fully utilise the space in the same bold way. In En promenade, he has pared away the details of the street itself, reducing it to an almost geometric simplicity as opposed to the cobbles and details in Scène de rue. En promenade is thus filled with the planar, Synthetist manner that Vallotton so appreciated in the Nabis, and which he developed to new extremes. This stylistic difference aside, both Scène de rue and En promenade share the same interest in the frank depiction and celebration of life in the streets of Paris. In En promenade, the girl's hand and foot show her to have been captured in mid-stride, giving the painting a sense of spontaneity similar to that of a photograph. This also heightens the informality of the scene, the sense that it is an intime moment, despite being outdoors. These are everyday people caught at an everyday moment, and yet it is this that lends the painting its timelessness and honesty.
This daring composition appears to owe much to the influence of Japanese art, and especially of the woodblock prints which had so influenced the Nabis. Vallotton himself came to know the Nabis largely through his revival of the woodcut. In no time, he had become a master in the medium, and was selling prints and illustrations, an occupation that placed him in direct contact with Toulouse-Lautrec. It was mainly through his work for the literary review, La Revue Blanche, produced by the Natanson brothers, who are captured in oil portraits by Vallotton, that he came into contact with Vuillard and Bonnard, as well as Toulouse-Lautrec, and in turn, through them, he was introduced to literary luminaries such as Emile Zola and Stéphane Mallarmé, with whom he became friends. Thus at the time that En promenade was painted, Vallotton found himself at the centre of an exciting and controversial group of artists and writers who were challenging all the givens of their day, laying siege to the all-too-comfortable aesthetics of their age.
Considering this esoteric composition, it is perhaps no coincidence that in 1892, Vallotton had exhibited in the first Salon de la Rose+Croix, although the scene of modern life here shown would have been an anathema to Josephin Peladan, the founder of that salon. The fact that he had exhibited then, with many of the other Nabi artists, much reflects the evolution of Vallotton's art, which had shifted away from the stricter, more mystical side of the Nabi aesthetic (Nabi itself derived from a Hebrew word for prophet), towards the intimisme of Vuillard and Bonnard. Despite this shift in interest, the manner of painting in En promenade remains clearly influenced by the original Synthetist precepts of the movement. Through the various artistic and literary circles with which Vallotton was now associated, he found himself friends, and involved in projects, with many of the most revolutionary minds of the day. Like many of the people in Mallarmé's circle, Peladan had been interested in Communism; Vallotton also helped to illustrate the anarchist Zo d'Axa's memoirs. This political side to his life is extended in his paintings of street scenes, of real life. There is a democratisation at work that results in a frank and engaging painting that appears to tap into the very spirit of life at the end of the Nineteenth Century.
It is this cutting edge content, as well as the charming composition appearance of En promenade, that resulted in its being almost certainly exhibited in Siegfried Bing's famous Salon de l'Art Nouveau in 1896, which had also been decorated with stained glass commissioned, by Bing himself, from Vallotton, alongside Bonnard, Denis, Sérusier and Vuillard. En promenade then passed into the collection of Jos Hessel, one of the partners in the Bernheim-Jeune gallery and an important patron of the arts and of the Nabis in particular, who owned masterpieces that are now in museum collections around the world, including the Metropolitan Museum, the National Gallery of Art and the Cleveland Museum of Art.