Les deux belles-soeurs 1899

Curator: Bonjour! Welcome. Let's gather 'round Edouard Vuillard's 1899 lithograph, "Les deux belles-soeurs," or "The Two Sisters-in-Law" hanging in the Statens Museum for Kunst. It captures a domestic moment with striking intimacy. Editor: Intimacy is the word, yes, but it feels almost secretive, doesn't it? Cloaked. That heavy black form... It's almost looming. Is it meant to feel... oppressive? Curator: It's interesting you say oppressive. I see it as a shield of sorts. Remember, Vuillard belonged to the Intimist movement, dedicated to portraying private life. That mass could symbolize the emotional weight, or even the unspoken tension, inherent in close relationships. Editor: Ah, so the gorgeous wallpaper becomes this decorative cage around the scene. I was drawn to the palette: yellows and greens clashing lightly above the two figures like light after a summer storm, yet the heavy shadows suggest all might not be at peace? It's like visual dissonance. Curator: Precisely! Look at the flattening of space. The patterns merge figures and background, almost dissolving individual identity into the shared domestic sphere. We might even say the sisters are "absorbed" by their social role and surrounding. Editor: I do adore how lithography lets artists play with textures. See those almost scratchy, wispy strokes? He really emphasizes surface—literally and metaphorically. But does it also evoke a feeling of nervousness? This constant surface activity distracts and attracts me from looking deeper. Curator: Perhaps that anxiety mirrors Vuillard's own anxieties about class and belonging. Though part of the avant-garde, he also portrayed bourgeois life so skillfully because he felt both inside and outside of it. What’s rendered is a portrait that exposes something true of private life... without, maybe, being entirely clear what that thing IS. Editor: Maybe it's better we are kept at bay... a feeling that Vuillard has perfectly rendered here, I'd say. Curator: A domestic tension veiled by pattern and color... quite a spell! I am so delighted we lingered here to break it down. Editor: Indeed. It's easy to forget art, especially in printed form, offers us glimpses into whole other existences, not merely pretty surfaces.