Vuillard Et L'art Du Japon

Exhibition at the Fondation de l'Hermitage, Vevey, 23 June - 29 October 2023

While all the Nabis painters were sensitive to the art of Japan, Édouard Vuillard (1868-1940) collected the largest number of prints: one hundred and eighty sheets inspired by Japanese landscapes, geishas or kabuki actors, signed by the masters of wood engraving, including Hiroshige, Hokusai, Kunisada, Kuniyoshi, Eisan and Utamaro.

Vuillard's interest in Japanese aesthetics, hitherto ignored by academic circles, was probably sparked by the major exhibition of Japanese art at the École des Beaux-Arts in 1890. Until the First World War, references to Japanese art permeated his work. Without making any concessions to overused exoticism, he enriched his art by freely adopting the codes of the Land of the Rising Sun.

This exhibition catalogue presents a dialogue between around a hundred paintings and engravings by the "red-bearded nabi" and some fifty Japanese masterpieces. The work focuses on the pictorial genres practised by Vuillard, revisited through the prism of Japanese aesthetics, revealing the artist's highly personal assimilation of them. The catalogue is completed by a collection of paintings imbued with Japanese art by Bonnard, Denis, Ranson and Vallotton, Vuillard's Nabis friends.