Le Bateau-Mouche 

Editor: This is "Le Bateau-Mouche" by Édouard Vuillard. It seems to be an oil and gouache on cardboard. I find it really interesting how he's captured the scene – it feels almost dreamlike. How do you interpret the symbols and imagery in this piece? Curator: Notice the recurring use of latticework and screens. This, alongside the hazy indistinct figures, invokes a sense of being concealed or observed. Vuillard was part of the Intimist movement; scenes of interior life, but here applied to a public space. The Bateau-Mouche, a Seine riverboat, acts as another type of interior, a mobile room filled with anonymous faces. What does that anonymity signify for you? Editor: I guess the anonymity gives the scene a universal feeling. Anyone who’s traveled can relate to the detached feeling of observing people in transit. Are there any particular symbols Vuillard used that repeat across his other paintings? Curator: Yes, wallpaper patterns, mirrors, and, like here, obscured views. These echo anxieties around domesticity and visibility of women in his time, anxieties around modernity and rapid urban changes, too. They are psychological barriers as much as they are physical elements within the composition. Notice how he softens everything – the very steel structures of the metro, almost dissolve. Editor: That’s fascinating! It is like he is painting a mood, an emotion rather than an exact scene. Curator: Precisely. He is pulling on the cultural memory of confinement and societal expectations. Art like this makes us think about what images reveal about ourselves and the society we create. Editor: I hadn't considered the cultural memory aspects before. That adds a whole new layer to the artwork for me. Curator: Indeed. Art always echoes through history, shaping and being shaped by the times.