Vase of Flowers

In this still life with flowers, Édouard Vuillard included the kind of sumptuous furnishing—the gold-trimmed blue sofa behind the bouquet—found in the homes of the fashionable patrons and friends who were commissioning portraits from him at the time. He confounds our spatial expectations, however, by showing side and front views of the sofa simultaneously. The shrill light blue and marigold colors at the far left form a counterpoint to the dark shape on the table in the foreground, possibly a book. Flowers were an important aspect of Vuillard’s interiors, though he was not always concerned with botanical exactness. This bouquet seems to be the haphazard bounty of a backyard garden. Leaves stranded in the water have started to decay, and the two spindly rosebuds appear stuffed into the top, perhaps added to freshen the arrangement. Vuillard mirrored this sense of spontaneity in his handling.