Across the Fields

1899

Landscapes and Interiors: Across the Fields, 1899. Edouard Vuillard (French, 1868–1940). Color lithograph; The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of the Hanna Fund 1951.65.4 In this print, Edouard Vuillard used simplification of detail to suggest the sense of relaxation and freedom that he found in the landscape depicted. He used seemingly shapeless blots of color that remain recognizable as figures: the woman in a striped dress keeps a firm hold on her child, as though restraining him from running through the field, and a man in green turns and leans with the proper combination of intimacy and formality to engage with the couple behind him. On August 31, 1890, Vuillard wrote in his journal to “conceive of a picture really as a series of harmonies.”