Roussel à la mèche noire

Roussel à la mèche noire (Roussel with the Black Lock) of 1890 is a very early portrait of Ker-Xavier Roussel — the painter who would become Vuillard's brother-in-law through his marriage to Marie Vuillard — captured at a moment when both young men were still in the formation of their artistic identities. The 'black lock' of hair serves as the kind of specific visual detail that Vuillard consistently used to anchor his portraits in the particular physical reality of the subject: not a psychological generalization but a specific observable feature that identified this person at this moment. His 1890 handling was still within the naturalistic approach of his academic training, before the Nabi transformation that would give his portraits their characteristic compressed, patterned quality. The early date makes this a document of his friendship with Roussel before the full formation of their mature styles.

The informal portrait is handled with the directness of a work made for personal rather than commercial purposes, the sitter's characteristic feature identified in the title and observed in the painting. The background is relatively simple, allowing the portrait character to assert itself without the elaborate domestic setting of Vuillard's commissioned works.