Le bateau de pêche

Le bateau de pêche (The Fishing Boat) represents Vuillard's occasional excursions into maritime subject matter during his summers at Normandy and Brittany coastal properties. The coastal working life — fishing boats, harbours, nets — had little of the intimate domestic character of his signature subjects, and his marine works have an observational freshness different from the accumulated pattern-knowledge of his interiors. These subjects were painted primarily during his summer stays with the Hessels at Villerville or other coastal resorts on the Normandy coast.

The fishing boat's hull provides a strong formal element in a composition organised around horizontal bands of sea, vessel, and sky. Vuillard's outdoor palette is lighter and more luminous than his interiors, and the brushwork is relatively free and sketchy compared to the more finished surfaces of his domestic commissions.