The Clarac Gallery
Édouard Vuillard1922
The Toledo Museum of Art
Toledo, United States
In an ornate gallery in the Musée du Louvre in Paris, a man and three women (one only partially visible at the left) look at, read about, and contemplate Greek antiquities. While capturing contemporary Parisian life, La Salle Clarac is also an image about the act of looking at art. Edouard Vuillard encourages us to identify with the spectators in the painting by using a low vantage point for the scene that sets us at their level. Painted not long after the devastating destruction of World War I (1914–18), the picture also reminds us of the function of museums to preserve and present humanity’s artistic and cultural heritage for posterity.
La Salle Clarac is one of four paintings of interior scenes set in some of Vuillard’s favorite galleries at the Louvre, painted on commission for a private home in Switzerland. Vuillard achieved the unusual matte surface by applying distemper—a water-based medium that dries quickly—along with slower-drying oil paint. Additionally, he deliberately left the canvas unvarnished, eliminating its glossy effects.
- Title: The Clarac Gallery
- Creator: Edouard Vuillard
- Creator Lifespan: 1868 - 1940
- Creator Nationality: French
- Creator Gender: male
- Creator Death Place: La Baule-Escoublac, France
- Creator Birth Place: Cuiseaux, France
- Date Created: 1922
- Physical Location: Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio
- Location Created: Europe, Paris, France
- Physical Dimensions: Painting: 38 5/8 × 45 5/8 in. (98.1 × 115.9 cm) Frame: 46 1/2 × 53 1/2 × 3 in. (118.1 × 135.9 × 7.6 cm)
- Subject Keywords: interior scene; man; woman; browsing; pottery; vases; ceramics; books; hat; case; Greek antiquity; Musée du Louvre; Paris; heritage; culture; spectators; Nabis; paintings; reading; La Salle Clarac
- Type: Painting
- Rights: https://toledomuseum.org/collection/image-resources/
- External Link: Toledo Museum of Art
- Medium: Oil with distemper on canvas
- Fun Fact: "Why is it in the familiar places that the mind and the sensibility find the greatest degree of genuine novelty?"— Edouard Vuillard, 1893 One of a series of four paintings representing interior scenes of the Musée du Louvre in Paris, La Salle Clarac was painted on commission for a private home in Switzerland. It depicts an ornate gallery, a favorite of Vuillard's, decorated in 1826 with paintings, colored marble, and gilded paneling. The artist has included four figures, a man and three women, looking at, reading about, and contemplating Greek antiquities displayed in glass and wood cases that are still in use today in a space that has remained essentially unchanged. As a member in the 1890s of the group of artists known as the Nabis (Hebrew for "prophets"), Vuillard, along with Pierre Bonnard (see 1930.215), pursued an aesthetic employing flat patches of color and pattern to scenes of everyday Parisian life. La Salle Clarac, remarkable because of its pink and gold hues, challenging due to its complex spatial arrangement, is a composition of great visual excitement, fascination, and significance. By rendering the scene from a low vantage point, Vuillard encourages us to identify ourselves with the spectators by placing us more or less at their same level. While very much a picture that captures Parisian life, it is simultaneously an image about the act of looking at art. Moreover, the picture reminds us of the function of museums to preserve and present humankind's artistic heritage for the enjoyment and education of all. This message was especially poignant in 1922, as the Louvre had only recently re-opened after the devastation and destruction wrought by World War I (1914-1918). Vuillard's "At the Louvre" series extols the glory of France's artistic heritage and leadership in a post-war Europe.
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