Art a Life Companion

Vuillard once said so much by leaving things unsaid. This PiP tribute captures the quiet beauty and mystery of everyday moments. A reminder that art doesn’t need to shout to move us.

When I travel for business, one of my rituals has always been to visit an art museum. Over the years this practice has left me with a circle of favorite paintings scattered across cities, like friends waiting for me to return.

In San Francisco, it is an early, spare Georgia O’Keeffe, just a few decisive lines that hold clarity. At the Phillips in Washington, D.C., I visit the Pippins and embrace their emotion. In Amsterdam, I still marvel at the works that need no introduction, such as Van Gough, but in New York and Washington, it is the Vuillards that speak to me.

Pippin painted from the heart — resilience, emotion, truth. This PiP homage celebrates his ability to turn lived experience into art that feels eternal.

My first true encounter with Édouard Vuillard was in the National Gallery of Art in D.C., in a modest room of French paintings. There I found a canvas with the scene of a little girl in a brilliant orange coat, her hand clasped in the unseen hand of an adult.

The rest of the canvas is muted, grey, understated but that flash of orange glows. I felt myself step into the picture. I understood the child, the gesture, the mood. And what I loved most was Vuillard’s restraint: he left so much unsaid. That openness is something I often seek in my own art — space for the viewer to imagine, to supply their own story, to answer a question the painting only gently poses.

The Metropolitan Museum holds another Vuillard that draws me back again and again: women arranging white chrysanthemums in a vase. The palette is subtle, maroon, black, and white but somehow, I can feel the texture of the dresses, the quiet of the parlor, the creativity in the act of arranging flowers. Every visit reveals something different to me. I’ve learned with time, that once a painting stops speaking to you, you can move on as I have experienced this with a number of artists, but when a painting keeps offering new insights and questions, it becomes a companion for life.

Mona Lisa with PiP raven companion, a playful reinterpretation of Leonardo da Vinci’s timeless masterpiece

This is not a new idea. Leonardo da Vinci is thought to have carried the Mona Lisa with him for years not just as his masterpiece, but I suspect, as a companion and a living experimental canvas. Myth itself gives us the Muses, imagined as ever-present companions who whisper inspiration. Vincent van Gogh once said, “Art is to console those who are broken by life.” 

Marc Chagall insisted, “Art must be an expression of love, or it is nothing.” Across time, art has been a presence to lean on not to solve our problems, not to preach, but simply to be with us.

I live surrounded by art: hundreds of images in my studio, each one meaningful, each one shaping the atmosphere of creativity and peace. To me, art is less about escape than about centering. Most of us don’t have time to meditate or sit in silence every day. But if our eyes can brush over an image that brings pleasure, or poses a gentle question, that moment is invaluable.

Art is a companion sometimes quiet, sometimes insistent, always ready to meet us where we are. And in sharing the art of PiP Art Gallery, that is the invitation: to pause, to look, and to let imagination walk alongside you.

Follow our art journey on Pinterest and let inspiration find you in the quiet scroll of your day. May each image pause you, console you, or spark a new story of your own.

Paula Phelan

Founder, PiP Art Gallery