Place Vintimille

In 1908 Vuillard moved into a flat on the rue de Calais, high above a small square with a railed garden in the middle. The square was called Vintimille then and bears the name of Adolphe Max today. For close to 20 years the view from those windows was one of his main subjects. He drew it, painted it from every angle, and photographed it with a small camera. This version, from around 1910, gives most of its height to the sky, a sweep of white cloud split by one long streak of blue. Below, the roofs and façades on the far side run in a narrow band, and the garden itself is little more than a few touches of green on a brown ground. He worked in distemper and went over parts of it with pastel, on a sheet of cardboard 50 centimetres high.