Member-only story
Why This Artist Has So Much To Teach About Visual Perception
The aesthetic marvel of Felix Vallotton
Recently, my attention has been hooked on the paintings of Felix Vallotton, a remarkable Swiss-French painter who flourished during the transitional years at the turn of the previous century.
His paintings seem to do what all great artworks do: they shift one’s sense of perception.
Vallotton’s compositions — that is, the manner in which his paintings are constructed, their particular use of colour and shape to describe whatever it is they are portraying — have added to my awareness of form in everyday life. Now, whenever I step out of my house, I see the world in a slightly altered way. Let me explain.
Take the painting above: The Red Chamber, painted by Vallotton in 1898. Notice how the shades of the tablecloth and two armchairs closely match the colours of the carpet, wallpaper and curtains. Foreground and background become merged, and shadows take on an aesthetic definition of their own.
This is deliberate of course. One of the fascinating aspects of Vallotton’s paintings is how he often used similar…
