L'Avenue. The Avenue. by Édouard Vuillard, 1868-1940

Édouard Vuillard, 1868-1940
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L'Avenue. The Avenue.

Original lithograph in colours. 1898/99. From the proposed edition of 100 impression (this edition may well never have been completed). Drawn and printed at the studio of Auguste Clot, Paris 1898. Commissioned by Ambroise Vollard, 1898. Issued in the series: Paysages et Intérieurs, 1899.
Superb impression with brilliant colours never previously mounted or framed.
Provenance: Estate of Auguste Clot. Estate of A.C. Mazo

Superb impression with absolutely brilliant sparkling colours. On off-white chine volant paper. Excellent condition. Full margins. Sheet: 14 x 19 3/4ins. Image overall: 12 3/8 x 16 3/8ins (315x416mm).

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In ?L?Avenue? Vuillard?s art and his use of lithography as a medium can be seen at its very greatest moment of inspiration. His use of shape patterns to describe both form and space is at its most effective, for example in the contrasts of the receding rectilinear patches of sunlight and shadow describing the perspective of the road and the contrast against the bold shapes suggesting the groups of people. This impression of ?L?Avenue? is also absolutely sensational in the brilliance of the colour, especially the bold blue in the woman?s dress on the right and on the figures beyond.

Vuillard and his friends in the Nabis circle of painters (the name ?nabis? taken from the Hebrew meaning prophets - heralds of a new era of art) had been greatly inspired by Gauguin and his ?Synthetist? ideas. Gauguin had gone to Pont Aven in Brittany to paint first in 1886 and then in 1888. During these visits he formed his friendship with Emile Bernard and also with Van Gogh and by 1888 he had arrived at his ?Synthetist style?. Along with the work of the Symbolists this marked the first major break with the ideas of Impressionism. Rather than visual sensation Gauguin told Vuillard and the young Nabis painters at the 1889 Café Volpini exhibition in Paris they should seek to express emotion, to suggest rather than to describe in the manner of music. Shape, colour and composition should all be used to speak to the emotions rather than just to the eyes. Vuillard was much inspired by these concepts and also, as Gauguin had been, by seeing Japanese art especially in ukiyo-e woodcuts, with their manner of treating shape and perspective and their idea that the space within a picture is only a part of a larger world.

When the print editor Ambroise Vollard approached Vuillard in 1897 with the idea of making a series of lithographs in colour he was immediately enthusiastic. He had been using lithography as a medium since the early 90?s but this commission gave him a chance to experiment more widely with combinations of colour and form. His theme was ?Paysages et Intérieurs - Landscapes and Interiors?. In the greatest works in this series of colour lithographs, like ?L?Avenue? his use of composition, colour and the contrasts of ink densities, from the most intense to floating films of colour, can be seen at its most daring and inspired, the summation of his art of the Nabis period.