Pomme

Pomme, painted in 1901, is a small still life that applies Vuillard's Intimist vision to the simplest possible subject — a single apple. The Nabis had taken Gauguin's flat Synthetism and applied it to intimate modern subjects, and Vuillard's still lifes extend this approach to the domestic objects that furnished the interiors he spent his career observing. A single fruit treated with the full seriousness of his painterly intelligence places Vuillard in the lineage of Chardin and Cézanne, both of whom found in the humble objects of domestic life the occasion for formal investigations of the highest ambition. The Petit Palais in Paris holds this small study as an example of how concentrated Vuillard's vision could be even at its most intimate scale.

Vuillard's treatment of the single apple applies his Intimist technique at its most concentrated — the fruit rendered in the mosaic-like strokes of muted color that define his approach, its surface absorbed into the surrounding tabletop and background in the characteristic integration of object and setting. His palette of warm ochres and cooler greens treats the apple's simple form with the same density of observation he brought to entire domestic interiors.