Salon interior by Jehan Frison (1882-1961)

Jehan Frison 1882-1961

Jehan Frison, a multi-talented Belgian artist, has distinguished himself as a painter, aquafortist, draughtsman, woodcarver and engraver.

He began his artistic studies at the Académie Saint-Joseph in Josse-ten-Noode, before going on to train at the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Brussels from 1896 to 1902.

Frison soon became close to artists who rejected the rigid conventions of the academy and the restrictive policies of the official salons.

He becomes involved in the Atelier libre "L'Effort", founded by the Fauvist painter Auguste Oleffe, with whom he forges friendships that influence some of his work.

Like many of his contemporaries, Frison traveled and exhibited abroad, notably in England, Italy, Morocco and France, where the Post-Impressionist and Nabis movements had a profound effect on him.

Jehan Frison's free, rich brushstrokes are similar to those of the Nabis, but with more vibrant colors.
He thrives on interior scenes like ours.

A major figure in the Belgian artistic revival of the interwar years, he left a lasting imprint, and his works can be found today in prestigious

In this intimate interior, Jehan Frison depicts a scene from everyday life.
The composition is organized around a set table covered with a white tablecloth, on which dishes, bottles, and fruit are arranged, rendered with broad, colorful strokes. On the right, a female figure, seen from behind, is busy near a sideboard bathed in light, her simple, concentrated attitude reinforcing the quiet, domestic character of the scene.

The painting focuses on color relationships and surfaces rather than minute detail. The forms are deliberately simplified, the contours sometimes suggested rather than defined, and the pictorial material remains visible, giving the whole a warm vibration.

This approach clearly evokes the spirit of the Nabis, particularly in the decorative treatment of space, the frontality of certain planes, and the attention paid to chromatic harmony rather than traditional perspective.

As in the works of Bonnard and Vuillard, the interior here becomes a world unto itself, an enclosed space where filtered, soft light structures the composition as much as the objects themselves

. Jehan Frison thus follows in the sensitive post-Impressionist tradition, where familiar scenes transcend simple realism to attain a poetic and meditative dimension, making this painting a discreet homage to the interior painting so dear to the Nabis.