VUILLARD, Édouard
(b. 1868, Cuiseaux, d. 1940, La Baule)

Children

1909
Gouache on paper pasted onto canvas, 845 x 777 mm
The Hermitage, St. Petersburg

An almost greater role than the children of the title, the dark red patch of carpet, or the Japanese screen is played by the landscape beyond the balcony. The floorboards bleached by the light form a sort of continuation, after a brief interval of shadow, and force the modest interior painted in the most general terms to open up under the intensity of the Normandy noon.