Francois-Xavier Roussel, known from boyhood as Ker, was part of the Nabis, which also included Maurice Denis, Paul Sérusier and Roussel’s lifelong friend and future brother-in-law, Edouard Vuillard.
The group, known for rejecting realism in favor of symbolic elements and the use of flat colors, bold outlines, and simplified forms, were looked to the works of masters such as Gaugin and Cezanne, who strove to bridge the chasm between Impressionism and modern art. Roussel’s earlier works in the late 1880s and early 1890s, with its somber tones, and landscape and still-life subjects, reflect this influence.
A lifelong admirer of Virgil and Ovid’s poetry, as well as the paintings of Nicolas Poussin, Roussel eventually found his metiér in antique themes and classical subject matter that depicted nymphs, gods, fauns and satyrs in Arcadian landscapes. This penchant for classical and pastoral themes was translated into large-scale murals for both public buildings and private homes.
In 1912, Roussel, working alongside Vuillard, was commissioned to paint the stage curtain for the newly built Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris. He also provided decorations for the city’s Palais de Chaillot and the Winterthur Museum in Switzerland. In all, Roussel completed some 40 decorative projects, but several were destroyed during the Second World War, and others have since been altered or mutilated.
While he became celebrated for his large-scale work, the bulk of Roussel’s work was in the form of pastels. The artist’s decorative mural schemes, in fact, were often based on small sketches in oil or pastel.
Writing in 1964, the scholar Denys Sutton stated, ‘It is, I think, true to claim Roussel as one of the unjustly neglected members of the French school of the period 1890 to 1940. This is mainly due to one fact, understandable under the circumstances; namely, that he painted in a way which does not accord with the canons of contemporary taste. He was a large-scale decorator who found his inspiration in the evocation of a sensuous and pagan world and he deserves our attention because of his conviction that decoration as such still has a rôle to play in the arts. He evolved a manner of painting – bold, dramatic and colourful – which, stylistically, may best be described as Neo-baroque…It is this combination of strong and powerful brush-work with an artist’s eye for colour which gives his work its character.’
