Rehabilitating Reputations

There's rehabilitating reputations - and then there's asking us to believe in moon fairies. And it's clear from the title of this exhibition that the latter is just what the Royal Academy, ever so politely, is asking of us.

Edouard Vuillard, the fin de siËcle Parisian who was influenced by the experiments of Gauguin, painted beautiful domestic scenes such as The Stitch (pictured). He was - without too much controversy - a great post-Impressionist. The first two rooms in this major retrospective easily testify to that. But modern master?

Go beyond those first two rooms and you'll see that Vuillard was neither that modern, nor, in fact - post-circa 1902 - very masterly. While the Fauves were busy lighting up their canvases with colours that would burn the retina, and the Cubists were fracturing form, Vuillard was, sadly, a bit past it.

Vuillard's problem is not that he depicts a world that is cosy, bourgeois and dull, as has been suggested - for there are some paintings here that could easily fall under such a description - it's just that he painted nearly all his great ones before the turn of the century.

And as we trot wearily through room after room of this exhibition - remember, Vuillard had another four decades to go after that first exuberant flourish - the overriding feeling is that of sadness at an artist's ossification and decline. And no amount of revisionism can alter that.

Until April 18, Royal Academy, Piccadilly W1, daily 10am to 6pm (Fri to 10pm), £9, £8 concs.

Tel: 020 7300 8000. Tube: Green Park/Piccadilly Circus