The First Class Compartment 1899

Édouard Vuillard made this small painting of a train interior using oil on cardboard. Vuillard was a key member of the Nabis, a group of Post-Impressionist avant-garde artists who insisted on art's expressive potential. This scene captures the visual experience of rapid modernization in France. Train travel was becoming widespread, and the compartments became a space where social class was on display. The title tells us that this is first class. Vuillard lived through a time of intense class tension. The rigid social order of the 19th century was destabilized by new wealth from industry and colonialism. The visual codes of posture, dress and activity visible here would have revealed clues to contemporary viewers about the status of the passengers depicted. To find out more about this, historians consult sources such as newspapers, photographs, literature, and advertisements, to reconstruct how people understood the society they lived in. Art like this is invaluable in that process.