Edouard Vuillard (1868-1940)
All that follows is what I learned from reading John Russell's introduction to E Vuillard: Drawings,1885-19. Vuillard did not exhibit his drawings: for one,he was a very private man; also he "rarely made what are called "exhibition-drawings": fully- worked-up compositions on big sheets of fine paper." Russell quotes Jacques Salomon, who tells us " Vuillard hardly ever painted from nature. His paintings almost always came out of a preliminary pencil sketch." And Vuillard drew almost continually wherever he was. When he returned home, he transferred the drawings to a sheet of cardboard, a piece of canvas or another sheet of paper. They were pieces quickly done. Russell says they were a specific kind of kind of Parisian drawing, then goes on to tell of how Delacroix told a young painter that it was not enough to be able to draw slowly and concentratedly as if all eternity were before him. "What you must be able to do is to see a man jump from a fourth-floor window and get a good likeness of him before he hits the ground. (I love reading John Russell.)
I like the searching line of these drawings. I see the change in value of the lines. I like the way part of the page is given to a small drawing of a detail in the larger sketch. I like the details that are left out, but indicated. And the domestic scenes and the architecture. Did he start out with a lighter pencil and go in later to emphasize some lines or did he just change pressure?
