Jeux d'Enfants. Children's Games. by Édouard Vuillard, 1868-1940

Édouard Vuillard, 1868-1940
Scroll down for information.
Click here to return to the list.

Jeux d'Enfants. Children's Games.

Original lithograph in colours. 1897. Signed in pencil. Drawn and printed at the studio of Auguste Clot, Paris 1896/97. From the edition of 100 (possibly not completed). Commissioned by Ambroise Vollard for his second 'Album des Peintres Graveurs - Album of Painter-Printmakers', Paris 1897.
Ref: Roger-Marx - Vuillard L'Oeuvre Gravé no 29

Extremely fine impression with briant fresh colours. On off-white chine volant paper. Excellent condition; a suggestion of old mount hinges. Full margins. Sheet: 16 5/8 x 22 1/2ins. Image approx: 11 1/4 x 17 1/2ins (285x445mm).

This item is sold.
Click here to enquire about this item.

An extremely fine impression with sparkling fresh colours of one of the most famous and beautiful colour lithographs that Vuillard drew for Vollard in the 1890's. It demonstrates to perfection the way that Vuillard approached the use of colour to create visual and emotional patterns rather than as an optical sensation or rendering of the theme. Like his Nabis friends he had been deeply influenced by the ideas of Gauguin. They had all fervently admired the famous 'Talisman' with its emotional use of colour, and he was inspired to use colour in a similar but personal way. In 'Jeux d'Enfants' he wanted to evoke the carefree atmosphere as the children played in the fields in the sunlight; so the colours are used not to show the actual colours of the children's clothes or the landscape but rather to evoke the atmosphere of the scene through the association of colour. Some of Vuillard's greatest work in the 1890's was in the medium of lithography.

Besides Gauguin the other great influence on Vuillard's style at this date, as for many of his
friends, was Japanese art and in particular Japanese woodcut prints. In Ukiyo-e prints he saw
how they distorted form, adapted pictorial composition and arrangement, or created patterns of drawing, in order to enhance the evocation of visual atmosphere. Vuillard changed his
drawing style and the manner in which he arranged his images to achieve the same ends. This
is very apparent in this brilliantly conceived lithograph.