Démolition rue de Calais (60.1.1)

The third of Vuillard's rue de Calais demolition pastels from 1927, this work at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Pau completes the series with a third view of the demolition site near his Paris neighborhood. Together, the three pastels constitute an unusual documentary project for an artist so identified with enclosed domestic worlds—a sustained look at urban disruption and transformation as a legitimate subject for pictorial attention. The pastel medium, traditionally associated with soft, intimate drawing, is here put to a more industrial subject.

Pastel's layered, powdery quality allows Vuillard to suggest the dusty, broken surfaces of construction without requiring the controlled brushwork of oil. The composition likely emphasizes the structural drama of exposed walls and debris, with Vuillard imposing his characteristic formal clarity on the disorder of the demolition site.