1895 (ca.), Edouard Vuillard, Girly by a linen cupboard -- Wallraf-Richartz Museum (Cologne)
From the museum label: Only with difficulty can we recognise the actual subject of this interior. The image of the girl by the linen cupboard takes up less than half of the painting. Our gaze is distracted by a wall with a glass door set ajar, which actually belongs to the adjacent room. The structure of the space and the relations between the objects have been reduced to pure sheets of colour and ornamental pattern, which refuse to give any visual orientation. Vuillard has subjected this everyday scene to purely artistic laws to produce decorative two-dimensionality. Ornamental structure holds precedence here over the representation of reality.
1895 (ca.), Edouard Vuillard, Girly by a linen cupboard -- Wallraf-Richartz Museum (Cologne)
From the museum label: Only with difficulty can we recognise the actual subject of this interior. The image of the girl by the linen cupboard takes up less than half of the painting. Our gaze is distracted by a wall with a glass door set ajar, which actually belongs to the adjacent room. The structure of the space and the relations between the objects have been reduced to pure sheets of colour and ornamental pattern, which refuse to give any visual orientation. Vuillard has subjected this everyday scene to purely artistic laws to produce decorative two-dimensionality. Ornamental structure holds precedence here over the representation of reality.