Vuillard in the Park

With Vuillard’s painting of a park in Paris as a backdrop, students will explore the social concepts of parks both in this painting and their own life. They will then embody a character in the painting to write from their perspective. Lastly, they will select an outdoor scene that they will document seasonal and environmental changes through writing and sketching over a long period of time.

A screen made up of five tall, rectangular panels, set side by side and each surrounded by a gold frame, is painted as a single scene showing a tree-lined sidewalk curving around a park in a city. The scene is loosely painted with short, rounded brushstrokes. The top two-thirds to three-quarters of most of the panels are filled with the lime and olive-green leaves of the trees that line the sidewalk and park. In the leftmost panel, the sidewalk and road lead back to a row of caramel-brown building façades. The sidewalk is pale taupe, and the street is painted with dashes of the same taupe against terracotta brown, suggesting cobblestones. Spindly trees are spaced in a row along the sidewalk in round holes covered with smoke-gray metal grates. A black fence, painted with thin, sometimes broken black lines encloses the park beyond, which has a path around plantings and the vivid green lawn. Touches of pink on a sage-green tree to our left in the park suggest flowers. A gray statue on a high plinth is partially lost in the break between the two rightmost panels. Men, women, and children, painted with a few strokes of black, gray, or marine or periwinkle blue, walk along the sidewalk and the garden path, or sit at the base of the fence or on benches spaced along the sidewalk. The women seem to wear long dresses and the men dark clothing and hats. Two carriages are pulled up on the street near a lamp post alongside the sidewalk near the lower left. In the leftmost panel, horse-drawn carriages move along the road leading back to the buildings, and more people seem to be gathered on the sidewalk near the left edge of the panel in the distance. The artist signed the work with brown paint in the lower right corner: “E. Vuillard.” The panels of the screen have been set up so the panels rest on a platform or on the floor in a shallow zig-zag pattern, in a room with an off white wall and bisque-brown molding along the floor. — Edouard Vuillard, Place Vintimille, 1911, five-panel screen, distemper on paper laid down on canvas, Gift of Enid A. Haupt, 1998.47.1-5

Materials

Writing and drawing materials
Copies of the “Climates Around the World” map

Warm-Up Questions

Is there a park you like to visit? What do you like to do there? Is it well taken care of? In what ways can you be a steward of your favorite park or other parks around you?

Background

In 1908, Édouard Vuillard moved with his mother to a fifth-floor apartment with a panoramic view of Place Vintimille (now Place Adolphe Max), a city square adjacent to the Montmartre neighborhood of Paris. Between 1909 and 1928, he painted sixty views of the park and took numerous photographs, recording different times of day and different climatic conditions. He painted and took photographs of the park covered in snow, wet with rain, and colorful with autumn leaves. Vuillard also kept a diary in which he noted climatic changes in the park and variations in light and color effects.

This five-panel screen, mounted on a wooden support and backed by wallpaper, shows Place Vintimille from an exhilarating bird’s-eye view. The park is an open space filled with light and air. Around it, apartment buildings and shops rise up to the very edge of the painting, filling the entire sky. Gaps in the foliage allow glimpses of daily life in the park below—a schoolboy kneels to check the air pressure in the front tire of his bicycle, people talk together on benches, a man rests on the sidewalk along the park’s curved fence.

Instead of using oil paints, Vuillard worked with a material called distemper, a combination of powdered pigments, hot glue, and water. He boiled the glue and water for many hours, then mixed the pigments with the liquid, keeping the solution warm to prevent thickening. The fast-drying distemper required quick but carefully planned application and, for areas of correction, reworking with newly mixed colors. Although this method was time-consuming and difficult, Vuillard liked the crusty surface it created. Vuillard was deeply interested in representing everyday life. He was associated with a group of artists who believed in using vivid colors and energetic lines to produce art that was personal, poetic, and expressive.

Guided Practice

Find Paris on the “Climates Around the World” map. Based on its geographical location and on clues in the painting, what is the climate like? (Seasonal, cool temperate.) What season might it be? What information in the painting supports your answer? (Light green leaves and flowering trees suggest the season is early spring.)
Look carefully at the painting’s point of view. Where was the artist in relation to the park when he painted it? (He painted it from his fifth-floor apartment.) How might the park look different if he painted it from a different place, say, ground level?
Why have parks? In what ways do the environment, people, and animals benefit from this resource? (Plants absorb harmful carbon dioxide, provide oxygen, lower the evaporation rate of water; parks provide cool areas in hot weather, habitats for birds and other animals, and recreational areas.)
Imagine you are Vuillard living and working in a busy city like Paris. In what ways are the people you are painting enjoying the ecosystem of the park?

Activity

Students will write from the perspective of a person or animal in this painting. They should describe how they are dressed, what the weather feels like, what activity they are engaged in, and what they see, hear, and smell. They should also imagine what brought them to this particular park: Is it their first visit or do they come here often because they live nearby? Are they on a break from work? out running errands? enjoying a Saturday afternoon? What are their plans after leaving the park?

Extension

Like artist Edouard Vuillard, who studied the Place Vintimille in Paris over the course of years, students can study one place for an extended period, noting climatic changes in journal entries and sketches. Have students choose a spot visible from a classroom window and note the changes they see each month. Their diary entries and drawings can be displayed together in an end-of-year exhibition.

National Core Arts Standards

VA:Cn10.1.5 Apply formal and conceptual vocabularies of art and design to view surroundings in new ways through art-making.

VA:Cr2.3.5 Identify, describe, and visually document places and/or objects of personal significance.

VA:Re7.1.5 Compare one's own interpretation of a work of art with the interpretation of others.

VA:Re7.2.6 Analyze ways that visual components and cultural associations suggested by images influence ideas, emotions, and actions.

VA:Re8.1.5 Interpret art by analyzing characteristics of form and structure, contextual information, subject matter, visual elements, and use of media to identify ideas and mood conveyed.