Neither Vuillard nor Bonnard, with whom he shared a studio, actually copied photographs in their resonant, small-scale paintings of domestic interiors. Instead, both tried to replicatethe immediacy of snapshots (or instantanés as they were called in France) often catching their subjects mid-gesture. Using his photographs only as an occasional reference point, or toreflect a mood, Vuillard recomposed his subjects at will. “At Table, Lunch” and “In Front of theTapestry: Misia and Thadée Natanson” both show abbreviated figures, whether absorbed in eating a meal, or with their backs to the viewer. Vuillard's figures, who are almost swallowed up by the vibrant decor, have an apparitional quality that appealed to the 20th-century Frenchphotographer, Henri Cartier-Bresson, who described Vuillard and Bonnard as among the artists he most admired.
波纳尔和维亚尔共用一个画室，两人的小幅装饰画均有一定反响，但实际上这些画并非选自他们拍摄的照片。他们想要尝试的是重现快照(法语为instantanés)中被瞬间定格的运动中的人物。对于维亚尔来说照片仅是一种临时的参考或某种情感的反应，他会随心所欲地对主题进行重塑。《餐桌边的午餐》和《在挂毯前：米西亚和塔德·纳坦松》呈现的都是缩影式的人物，或是在全神贯注的用餐，或是背对着观众。维亚尔画中的人物几乎会被色彩鲜明的画面所淹没，有种若隐若现的效果。20世纪法国摄影师亨利·卡帝尔·布烈松对这种画风极为欣赏，他把维亚尔和波纳尔视为偶像。
A Dutch painter, George Hendrik Breitner, also seizes a moment in time in a bustlingAmsterdam street scene that is dominated by a veiled figure holding a fur muff up to her face, looking blurred and fugitive, as in real life. Now acknowledged as a gifted photographer in his own right, Breitner used his camera for “Girl in Red Kimono” (pictured right above with its photographic model, left). This precise yet atmospheric re-creation of his snapshot of a girl curled up on a divan, shows her intricately patterned kimono in sharp contrast with thedesign of the Persian carpet at her feet.
与此同时，荷兰画家乔治·亨德里克·布赖特纳也抓住时机记录下来阿姆斯特丹川流不息的街景，画面突显了一位头戴面纱的女子，身上包裹着毛皮披肩，只露出脸，神情隐约难辨，整幅画作看起来非常逼真。布赖特纳凭借自己的努力被公认为天才摄影师，他利用相机绘制出《穿红色和服的女子》(右上图为画作，左图为模特照片)。照片中的女孩蜷曲在沙发上，身上的和服花纹精致复杂，与脚下的波斯地毯的图案对比鲜明，布赖特纳根据这张照片进行的再创作描绘精确，完美的再现了原照的氛围。
Unlike their official work, none of this exhibition's seven artists ever intended their photographs to go on public display. Photography, for them, was a mechanical process rather than an art form. Some of the images come from the attics and albums of the artists' families; Rivière's photographs, now at the Musée d'Orsay, were catalogued only in 1988. Vallotton, who left just 20 images, compared with 2,000 left by Vuillard, may even have destroyed theevidence following accusations that he copied a central figure from a photograph published in a French magazine in 1908. Snapshot studies for two of his paintings, “Beach at Etretat” and aportrait of his wife entitled “Red Room, Etretat”, show how he worked from photographs, eliminating extraneous details and grey shadows. He used this pared-down style to create powerful groups of figures or psychological portraits.
此次展览涉及的7位艺术家从未打算把这些照片作为正式作品公布于众。对于他们来说摄影只是一个机械加工过程，并非艺术。许多图片是他们的家人从阁楼上或是影集里找到的。里维尔拍摄的照片现在展览于奥赛博物馆，但也只是在1988年才被收入博物馆。而瓦洛东仅留下20幅图片，相比维亚尔的2000幅照片，他的数量就少多了。他曾被指责抄袭了1908年出版的一本法国杂志里的照片——照片中的一个主要人物，但如今从这些少量留存的照片中已找不到任何证据。瓦洛东有两幅画作，《埃特尔塔的沙滩》以及他为妻子画的题为《红色房间，埃特尔塔》的肖像画，对照相片进行研究，可以发现他如何利用照片学习去除冗余的细节和不必要的阴影。采用这种简洁的风格瓦洛东创作出很多场面宏大的画作以及心理肖像描写。
Vallotton and Vuillard liked to exchange photographs. Evenepoel, a pupil of Gustave Moreau who took almost 900 photographs, including a series of searching self-portraits, in the two years before he died of typhoid aged 27, described his camera as a “real gem”. A photograph of his hesitant family about to cross the Place de la Concorde recalls Edgar Degas's famousportrait of Vicomte Lepic and his daughters, while images of his cousin Louise de Mey and their son Charles embody the emotion he invested in his portraits.