Madame Hessel Chez La Modiste c. 1903

Vuillard captured this scene of Madame Hessel at the milliner’s with oil on canvas. The ochre, green, and red palette is applied with a dry brush, creating soft textural vibrations that give the impression of a blurry photograph. I can imagine Vuillard standing in the corner of the room with a small brush, darting his eyes around trying to soak everything in, the room busy with bodies and hats. And then, he quickly dabs and strokes the paint onto the canvas. Look at that green figure in the centre of the canvas, a dressmaker’s dummy maybe? It’s a flurry of marks, a total ghost. And then there's the red underpainting coming through everywhere, unifying the surface. The whole painting shimmers with a warm light, so different from the flat colour you get with someone like Matisse. Vuillard and other painters, like Bonnard, were totally questioning the traditional way of making a picture. It’s like they asked, how can painting be more human, more like seeing, more real?