The Church of Souain

Félix Vallotton

National Gallery of Art

We look across the ruins of a white stone and brick building to a second set of ruins, now of gray stone against a butter-yellow sky in this horizontal landscape painting. Blocks and shards in tan, ivory and parchment white, pale orange, and light yellow are heaped along the bottom edge of the composition. The partially standing wall on the far side supports a few curved tiles, presumably from the previous roof. Long, vivid-green grass grows on both sides of this wall. On a low hill beyond the first ruins, partial arches and fragments of walls rise from a mound of gray rubble. Black lines suggest other supports in the building. The horizon comes about halfway up the painting, and a few trees with dark green canopies and spindly trunks are silhouetted against the yellow sky. The artist signed and dated the lower right corner, “F. VALLOTTON. 17.”