LA CIENEGA AREA

Edouard Vuillard’s drawings of domestic interiors are like rumpled beds or sofas--all comfy and warm and ragged around the edges. His landscapes evoke lazy summer afternoons in the country--lush and so dappled with light that they look like softly patterned carpets. Then there’s Vuillard the portraitist who might create a haughty silhouette worthy of Toulouse-Lautrec, chisel the features of an apprehensive model or dissolve a face in surrounding frumpery. A French artist mainly known as intimist and a master of the small moment, Vuillard (1868-1940) had more range than is often attributed to him. It’s on view in a rare exhibition of his paintings, pastels and drawings.

The last time we saw Vuillard in Los Angeles was at a drawing exhibition, five years ago at UCLA. The current presentation is such an unusual event for a commercial gallery that there’s a danger of being swept away by historical reverence. Vuillard’s major paintings have long since gone to museum collections, but there are some jewels among the 39 works that range from an incisive oil self-portrait to tiny hermetic sketches and expansive pastel landscapes.

A corner of portraits is well observed and richly varied. “Le Square Vintimille,” a horizontal landscape in charcoal and pastel on brown paper, has a captivating rhythmic pace, while in “Etude pour le Boudoir, Voile de Jenes,” deft strokes of color punctuate a measured view of a woman in an interior. These works capture attention partly because they are boldly composed--and probably uncharacteristic of an artist who adapted the lessons of Impressionism in a dense overall patterning. But one of the pleasures of Vuillard, even at his most casual, is finding structure in pictures that appear boneless. (Mekler Gallery, 651 N. La Cienega Blvd., to July 31.)