Avenue

Painted in 1907 and now at the Musée d'Orsay, this urban avenue scene represents Vuillard's relatively rare engagement with the outdoor urban landscape beyond his characteristic domestic interiors. Parisian boulevards and streets appear in his work less frequently than enclosed domestic spaces, but when he does treat them, the characteristic flattening of perspective and integration of figures with the surrounding environment creates urban scenes of distinctive intimacy. The 1907 date places this in his transitional period between the intense Nabi intimisme of the 1890s and the broader, more spacious late style.

The avenue recedes through a flattened spatial system that compresses depth in the manner influenced by Japanese prints and Nabi theory. Trees, figures, and the roadway are integrated into a pattern of vertical and horizontal colour zones, with the outdoor light handled more atmospherically than his interior subjects.