Twee wandelende mannen met bolhoed 1894 - 1949

Bernard Boutet de Monvel made this print called *Twee wandelende mannen met bolhoed*, or *Two Men Walking with Bowler Hats*, with a muted palette and simplified forms, as if the making of the image was a stroll in itself. Look at how the ochre ground meets the men’s suits, a kind of flat meeting of shapes that almost don't meet at all. The building in the background is like a theatre set, or a collage. This way of seeing flattens our world into something decorative. The two figures carry canes, but they also seem to be pulling the horse drawn carriage that travels behind them, like some kind of joke on perspective. You could say that Boutet de Monvel shares something with Edouard Vuillard in his attention to flattening and overall patterning, but his palette is more restricted, giving the image an uncanny calm. In the end, it's up to us to decide what we see.