The archive / Les Nabis / The Ball
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The Ball
Félix Vallotton · 1865–1925
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3 variations + a matched story print, every standard frame ratio. 300 DPI · sRGB · personal-use license.
Museum-quality giclée on Hahnemühle German Etching — heavyweight 310gsm, acid-free, velvety matte. Made to order & shipped.
Sizes in the download
Ready-to-print files at every size below — each drops straight into a standard frame at 300 DPI, nothing cropped:
Each of these also prints big-wall at 150 DPI — up to about 36″ on the short side (so the 36×24″ becomes 54×36″), for a step-back view. Or print the borderless master, the full-resolution scan, sharp to about 12×16″.
The work
A child becomes a splash of light, seen from above.
Vallotton looked down on this park from an unusually high, bird's-eye viewpoint, splitting the scene into two zones: a broad, sunlit stretch of ochre ground above and the deep shade of the trees below. Against that division the running child reads as a bright splash of light, preceded by a dark shadow.
Look closer
The space refuses to settle into depth.
Two small, pale figures, women standing side by side in blue and white, appear in the upper sunlit zone. Their diminutive size suggests they are far in the background, yet the picture's space reads as flat and frontal.
Why it matters
A Nabi who subtracted instead of decorating.
Where his fellow Nabis Vuillard and Bonnard filled such garden scenes with ornamental patterns, Vallotton reduced rather than augmented the visual elements, smoothing the paint into what has been called 'a material parallel to reality.' He drew his inspiration from Japanese prints, the Neoclassical master Ingres, and photography. Signed and dated 'F. VALLOTTON 99' at lower right, the painting is recorded in the artist's own account book for 1899 as number 415.
The file & the facts
- Title
- The Ball
- Artist
- Félix Vallotton
- Year
- 1899
- Medium
- Oil on board
- Original
- 48 × 61 cm
- Collection
- Musée d'Orsay, Paris
- Rights
- Open access · personal use
- File
- 300 DPI · sRGB · JPEG
