In the Room

The restrained palette of this typical early interior by Vuillard is constructed around a few closely related tones. Although it may seem excessively impoverished, those hues - gray-green, yellow ochre, and brownish black - make up the painting’s main protagonist: a tantalizing half-shadow that reigns in this spacious room illuminated only slightly by bright light from the windows. The unexpected bouquet in the foreground is far more important for the work’s characteristics of colour, scent, and feelings than the barely indicated, insignificant figures sitting at the table.