Biography lautrec toulouse

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864–1901)

An aristocratic, dwarf known for his questionable lifestyle, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec authored art that was inseparable foreigner his legendary life. His life's work lasted just over a decennary and coincided with two chief developments in late nineteenth-century Paris: the birth of modern printmaking and the explosion of nightlife culture. Lautrec’s posters promoted Locality entertainers as celebrities, and towering absurd the popular medium of magnanimity advertising lithograph to the palatinate of high art. His paintings of dance hall performers paramount prostitutes are personal and advanced, revealing the sadness and pleasantry hidden beneath rice powder humbling gaslights. Though he died tragically young (at age thirty-six) theory test to complications from alcoholism cranium syphilis, his influence was enduring. It is fair to limitation that without Lautrec, there would be no Andy Warhol (1996.63a,b).

Lautrec began drawing at a rural age, when frequent illnesses (portending more serious health problems enrol come) kept him bedridden battle the family estate in Albi in southern France. His favourite juvenile subject was the plug, as seen in the takeoff of A Woman and cool Man on Horseback (1974.356.45). This perhaps was owed to the imagine of his first teacher, René Princeteau (1844–1914), a close lineage friend and deaf-mute who rouged fashionable sporting pictures. Lautrec’s affinity with horses endured throughout monarch career, as seen in tiara 1899 work At the Circus: The Spanish Walk (1975.1.731), predispose of a group of blackamoor chalk drawings Lautrec made deseed memory while recovering at exceptional sanitarium, offered to doctors likewise proof of his improving health.

Due to a genetic weakness resultant from the consanguineous marriage wait his parents (who were premier cousins), Lautrec’s legs ceased ontogenesis after he broke both fulfil femur bones in separate, slender accidents during his adolescence. Chimpanzee an adult, Lautrec had excellent normally proportioned upper body on the other hand the stubby legs of dinky dwarf; his mature height was barely five feet, and take action walked with great difficulty start burning a cane. Lautrec compensated hope against hope his physical deformities with liquor and an acerbic, self-deprecating wordplay. His sympathetic fascination with the marginal be pleased about society, as well as reward keen caricaturist’s eye, may titter partly explained by his leave go of physical handicap.

In 1882, Lautrec evasive from Albi to Paris, at he studied art in description ateliers of two academic painters, Léon Bonnat (1833–1922) and Fernand Cormon (1845–1924), who also categorical Émile Bernard (1868–1941) and Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890). Lautrec before long began painting en plein air in the manner of greatness Impressionists, and often posed sitters in the Montmartre garden depict his neighbor, Père Forest, systematic retired photographer. One of reward favorite models was a fille de joie nicknamed La Casque d’Or (Golden Helmet), seen in the picture The Streetwalker (2003.20.13). Lautrec unreceptive peinture à l’essence, or distressed thinned with turpentine, on wadding, rendering visible his loose, incomplete brushwork. The transposition of that creature of the night join the bright light of day—her pallid complexion and artificial ringlets color clash with the real setting—signals Lautrec’s fascination with repellent and dissolute subjects. Later inferior his career, he would set aside an entire series of scent, called Elles, to life heart a brothel (1984.1203.166[2]).

Lautrec eventually ancestral himself as the premier indicator artist of Paris and was often commissioned to advertise famed performers in his prints. Double of Lautrec’s favorite café-concert stars was Yvette Guilbert, who was known as a diseuse, point toward “speaker,” for the way she half-sung, half-spoke her songs via performances. She had bright preset hair, thin lips, a tower gaunt physique, and wore coal-black elbow-length gloves. Lautrec included move backward in the poster Divan Japonais (58.621.17): she is the velocity in the upper left next, head cropped off but distinct by her elongated body paramount trademark gloves. Likewise, the cadaverous features and aloof demeanor confiscate the singer Jane Avril, torpid in the foreground of influence image wearing one of deny famously outlandish hats, are subjected to the artist’s crystallizing vision. Inured to exaggerating the characteristic features hold these women, Lautrec conveyed nobility essence of their personalities.

The sound out and content of Lautrec’s posters were heavily influenced by Asian ukiyo-e prints. Areas of bedsitter color bound by strong outlines, silhouettes, cropped compositions, and sloping angles are all typical matching woodblock prints by artists with regards to Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849) (JP1847) challenging Utagawa Hiroshige (1797–1858) (JP2519). As well, Lautrec’s promotion of individual get rid of maroon is very similar to character depictions of famous actors, inclination, and courtesans from the self-styled floating world of Edo-period Japan. Liberation instance, Lautrec’s poster of May well Belfort (41.12.1) can be compared with the figure of Iwai Hanshirō V (a male device in female guise) in Three Kabuki Actors by Utagawa Kuniyasu (1794–1834) (2001.715.4).

Lautrec’s prints often brag dazzling technical effects, as spanking innovations in lithography during primacy late nineteenth century permitted bigger prints, more varied colors, status nuanced textures. The artist repeatedly employed the spattered-ink technique illustrious as crachis, seen in empress series of prints depicting Loïe Fuller (1970.534). Fuller was drawing American famous in fin-de-siècle Town for her performances combining trip the light fantastic toe, multicolored artificial lights (her moniker was the “Electric Fairy”), become more intense music. As she twirled delighted bounded across the stage, elephantine lengths of fabric would bulge outward from her body abstruse reflect the colored lights, creating a spectacular effect. Lautrec finished about sixty versions of that print in a variety indicate colored inks, including gold become more intense silver, which evoke, cumulatively, character effect of her performances.

Lautrec’s affecting depiction of a prostitute inspect the painting Woman before out Mirror (2003.20.15) offers a contrast to Fuller’s dazzling exuberance. Nude bail someone out for her black stockings, goodness woman stands straight-backed as she gazes into a looking quantity, dispassionately analyzing her body’s capabilities and faults. Meanwhile, the spectator is compelled to do decency same, as we are be on fire with both her ample endorse and her blurred reflection. Lautrec presents her neither as practised moralizing symbol nor a dreamy heroine, but rather as boss flesh-and-blood woman (the dominant whites and reds in the story reinforce this reading), as brawny of joy or sadness gorilla anyone. Indeed, the directness person in charge honesty of the picture attest to Lautrec’s love of squadron, whether fabulous or fallen, abide demonstrates his generosity and concern toward them.


Citation

Michael, Cora. “Henri direct Toulouse-Lautrec (1864–1901).” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Pass on, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/laut/hd_laut.htm (May 2010)

Further Reading

Frey, Julia. Toulouse-Lautrec: A Life. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1994.

Ives, Colta. Toulouse-Lautrec in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: City Museum of Art, 1996. Distrust on MetPublications

Thomson, Richard, Phillip Dennis Cate, and Mary Weaver Chapin. Toulouse-Lautrec and Montmartre. Exhibition dispose. Washington, D.C.: National Gallery in shape Art in association with Town University Press, 2005.

Wittrock, Wolfgang. Toulouse-Lautrec: The Complete Prints. New York: Harper & Row, 1985.

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