Vintage 1974 Vuillard “Children’s Game” Art Plate

Vintage 1974 art plate affixed to chipboard backing for maximum ease in styling, propping, or framing.

Most art historians and all of Vuillard's biographers refer to him as an "intimist." What these writers wish to suggest is that he derives much of his subject matter from the contemplation, and loving depic-tion, of simple everyday surroundings-cluttered rooms, overladen tables, papered walls. Family and friends people his interiors and landscapes. He rarely refers to legend or history except in his occasional decorative panels designed as murals. Vuillard, more than any other artist of his time, brings order out ofapparent chaos. If his work suggests the work of any writer, it is certainly that of Marcel Proust, and Vuillard's personal recollection of the circumscribed world of his paintings and prints might well be described as a "remembrance of things past."

Vuillard was early influenced by the theories of the Nabis, a group of young painters inspired by statements and works of their older contemporary, Paul Gauguin. The term Nabi derives from the Hebrew word for prophet. The movement as such was short-lived, but from its small membership came at least two great artists, Bonnard and Vuillard.

Vuillard was not a prolific printmaker, and the majority of his works were done within the limitations of the black-and-white proof. However, his Paysages et Intérieurs, published by Vollard in 1899, and a few other larger prints, all in color, place him in the top rank of graphic artists of his time. With Bonnard and Roussel, aided by the master printer Auguste Clot, Vuillard worked diligently on Vollard's project. It is ironic that these prints, now so rare and costly six decades after they were made, were almost completely ignored by laymen and collectors at first, even though the prices were exceedingly low.

Childrer's Game is one of the master's major prints. On a large "lawn," arbitrarily rendered in a strong yellow, a woman bends down to pick up her fallen child. Other silhouetted figures dot the receding landscape. Distant trees and sky are summarily represented. There is a semi-Impressionistic handling of color and outlines. The strong influence of Japanese prints is also apparent.