Felix Vallotton by Félix Vallotton
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Julian Barnes introduced me to the Swiss artist Felix Vallotton in his wonderful book of essays on art, Keeping an Eye Open. Vallotton was a member of the artistic group calling themselves “the Nabis,” a “post-Post-Impressionist” cadre of artists who revered Gauguin, and adhered to the idea that before a painting became a horse, a landscape, or a nude, it was a flat surface with colors arranged in certain ways. Their paintings are drenched in colors, patterns, and light, and they didn’t stop with paintings: they did decorative screens, posters, playing cards, anything they could decorate. Vallotton was also a master of woodcuts and graphic illustrations: often brooding, enigmatic images in stark black and white – he made his living that way, until returning to painting. His series of sunsets are stunning variations of color, atmosphere, light, water, and pattern. He also, it must be said, for a deep-dyed admirer of Ingres, painted some of the most truly awful female nudes ever committed. A strange bird.
So off I went to find a book with more information, more pictures, and this was literally the only one in my entire metropolitan area library system. In a spindly sans serif typeface that was very uncomfortable to read, the Russian art historian author plods through Vallotton’s life, friends, letters, and practices. There are lots of lush color reproductions – and almost none of them are discussed at any length in the text. It’s as though the publisher hired the author to write a bio, and then randomly chose a bunch of paintings to sprinkle throughout the book – in roughly chronological order, but with no relationship to the text on the pages. Two of the nudes grace the front and back covers, and while I suspect Vallotton of having spied through my keyhole at 4 AM when I am feeding the cats for the latter, they do him no favors. Only one of the gorgeous sunsets appears, and they are barely mentioned. I liked looking at the images, but wanted to learn more about them and did not. Overall, a very disappointing experience. I will keep trying.
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