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Woodcut, L’Irréparable (Serie der Intimités X), 1898
Félix Vallotton
Woodcut, L’Irréparable (Serie der Intimités X),
Félix Vallotton,
*1055

Woodcut, L’Irréparable (Serie der Intimités X),
1898

Félix Vallotton
*1055
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Museum für Gestaltung Zürich
Ausstellungsstrasse 60
8031 Zurich
Museum map
Museum für Gestaltung Zürich
Toni-Areal, Pfingstweidstrasse 94
8031 Zurich
Pavillon Le Corbusier
Höschgasse 8
8008 Zürich
Museum map
  • L’Irréparable (Serie der Intimités X) Félix Vallotton Woodcut
  • L’Irréparable (Serie der Intimités X) Félix Vallotton Woodcut
  • L’Irréparable (Serie der Intimités X) Félix Vallotton Woodcut
  • L’Irréparable (Serie der Intimités X) Félix Vallotton Woodcut
  • L’Irréparable (Serie der Intimités X) Félix Vallotton Woodcut
  • L’Irréparable (Serie der Intimités X) Félix Vallotton Woodcut
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Listen to the text
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The woodcut series Intimités (Intimacies), published in La Revue blanche (1898–1903) in 1898, ranks among the most important graphic works by Félix Vallotton (1865–1925). Here, in an unabashed and often uncanny manner, he depicted everyday scenes from a couple’s relationship. The print L’Irréparable sums up the irreversible damage to this relationship with just a few precise planes and lines.

Félix Vallotton moved to Paris from Lausanne in 1882 to train as an artist at the Académie Julian. Initially, he earned his living with portraits and engravings and as an art critic. In 1892, following the success of his first woodcuts, he became a member of the Nabis, a group dedicated not only to the fine arts but also to the applied arts that cultivated a decorative style inspired by Japanese colored woodcuts. Vallotton’s woodcuts—which poke fun at people in their everyday lives using reduced forms and sharp contrasts—undoubtedly owe their flatness and emphasis on contours to the influence of the Nabis. However, they are also defined by realism, as well as by the precise outlines of the German Renaissance masters, whom Vallotton so greatly admired. The print L’Irréparable from the Intimités series demonstrates his ability to achieve maximum impact with restricted means. The relationship of the no-longer-young couple seems to have reached an impasse. They are trapped in a black expanse, which, at the top, assumes the shape of the sofa on which they are sitting. Only their sad faces and isolated hands shine out from the darkness. The hands recreate the undulating silhouette of the sofa, which is repeated once again in the ghostly fish motif of the palm tree planter. This image, along with nine other prints from the Intimités series, appeared in the publication La Revue blanche, the mouthpiece of the Nabis, for which Vallotton produced numerous illustrations. (Barbara Junod)

Holzschnitt, L'Irréparable (Serie der Intimités X), 1898
Künstler: Félix Vallotton
Verlag: La Revue blanche, Paris, FR (Erstveröffentlichung)
18 × 22.5 cm
Eigentum: Museum für Gestaltung Zürich / ZHdK
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Literature

Fabienne Fravalo, «Félix Vallotton et la Revue blanche», in: Histoire par l’image [online], abgerufen am 18. September 2017. URL: http://www.histoire-image.org/etudes/felix-vallotton-revue-blanche

http://www.sikart.ch/KuenstlerInnen.aspx?id=4022849

Rudolf Koella (Hg.), Félix Vallotton, Ausst.-Kat. Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung München, 25. August–5. November 1995; Folkwang Museum Essen, 26. November 1995–18. Februar 1996, mit Beiträgen von Marina Ducrey, Rudolf Koella und Christoph Vögele, München 1995 [Intimités im Katalog abgebildet].

Image credits

Holzschnitt, L'Irréparable (Serie der Intimités X), 1898, Künstler: Félix Vallotton
Abbildung: Museum für Gestaltung Zürich / ZHdK

Holzschnitt, Le Mensonge (Serie der Intimités I), 1897, Künstler: Félix Vallotton
Abbildung: Museum für Gestaltung Zürich / ZHdK

Holzschnitt, La belle Epingle (Serie der Intimités III), 1898, Künstler: Félix Vallotton
Abbildung: Museum für Gestaltung Zürich / ZHdK

Holzschnitt, La Raison probante (Serie der Intimités IV), 1898, Künstler: Félix Vallotton
Abbildung: Museum für Gestaltung Zürich / ZHdK

Holzschnitt, L'Argent (Serie der Intimités V), 1898, Künstler: Félix Vallotton
Abbildung: Museum für Gestaltung Zürich / ZHdK

Holzschnitt, Le grand Moyen (Serie der Intimités VI), 1898, Künstler: Félix Vallotton
Abbildung: Museum für Gestaltung Zürich / ZHdK

Holzschnitt, Apprêts de visite (Serie der Intimités VIII), 1898, Künstler: Félix Vallotton
Abbildung: Museum für Gestaltung Zürich / ZHdK

Exhibition text
Félix Vallotton - Woodcuts

The well-known painter Félix Vallotton (1865–1925), a Lausanne native who made his home in Paris, created many woodcuts in the 1890s in which he lampooned the everyday lives of his contemporaries. His style, influenced by the Nabis in Paris and the German Old Masters, is characterized by flatness, accentuated contours, and the suggestive power of the line. Like Albrecht Dürer before him but with a modern formal vocabulary, Vallotton elevated the woodcut to equal status with painting.