Landscape - House on the Left

Landscape — House on the Left of around 1900, now at Tate in London, is representative of Vuillard's landscape subjects from the turn of the century, a relatively rarely examined aspect of an artist primarily known for his intimate domestic interiors. Vuillard was a central member of the Nabis group, whose members — including Bonnard, Sérusier, and Denis — developed a flattened patterned approach to painting under the influence of Gauguin's synthetist ideas. The landscape here is treated with the same merging of background and foreground, the same refusal of conventional spatial recession, that characterises Vuillard's interiors: trees, house, and lawn are woven into a continuous decorative surface rather than arranged in depth.

Vuillard's landscape handling uses the Nabi approach to pattern and flatness: foliage, grass, and house facade are treated as flat colour areas with minimal modelling, spatial relationships implied by overlapping rather than atmospheric perspective. The overall tonality is warm and golden, suggesting an autumnal afternoon light that unifies all surfaces under a single atmospheric key.