Maryline Desbiolles on Félix Vallotton's Uncompromising Violence

Maryline Desbiolles has published 'Vallotton est inadmissible' with Seuil, a hybrid text blending narrative, essay, and documentary. The book explores the Swiss-born painter Félix Vallotton's contradictory nature—an anarchist who married a wealthy art dealer's daughter and lived a bourgeois life, yet opposed academic painting. Desbiolles traces a childhood memory of a solitary tree at dusk that sparked her connection to Vallotton's work, emphasizing his ability to depict a threshold where the familiar turns menacing. She describes his violence as contained in his line, pushed colors, and stark juxtapositions. The book was reviewed by Didier Arnaudet in artpress.