Across Country (A travers champs)

Art Historical Context

Édouard Vuillard'sAcross Country (A travers champs)*, created around 1897–1898 and published in1899, captures the artist's fascination with everyday landscapes through the innovative medium of color lithography on delicate China paper. intimate print, measuring about 26 × 34 cm, exemplifies Vuillard's Post-Impressionist roots as a member of Les Nabis, a group blended symbolism, bold patterns, and decorative flatness to evoke mood over strict realism. The thin China paper enhances the vibrancy and subtlety of the layered colors, a technique that allowed for rich, painterly effects in printmaking during the fin-de-siècle era. Lithography was a revolutionary process at the time, enabling artists like Vuillard to produce affordable, multiple editions of complex color works, bridging fine art and popular reproduction. Vuillard, known for his domestic interiors, here turns to pastoral themes—suggested by the title's evocation of traversing fields—infusing rural scenes with his signature intimacy and textured surfaces. Part of the esteemed Rosenwald Collection at the National Gallery of Art, this print highlights the Nabis' push against academic traditions, making art accessible and emotionally resonant. Visitors will appreciate how *Across Country* reflects the late 19th-century Parisian avant-garde's embrace of print as a democratic medium, inviting us to wander its imagined countryside with fresh eyes.

About the Artist

Edouard Vuillard · 1868–1940

Jean-Édouard Vuillard was born on November 11, 1868, in Cuiseaux, Saône-et-Loire, France, to a retired naval captain father and seamstress mother, Marie Vuillard. After his father's early death in 1884, the family settled in Paris, where Vuillard attended the Lycée Condorcet, meeting future Nabis members like Ker-Xavier Roussel—later his brother-in-law—and Maurice Denis. He began formal training i...