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 replicate the 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 to reflect a mood, Vuillard recomposed his subjects at will. “At Table, Lunch” and “In Front of the Tapestry: 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 French photographer, 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。

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