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Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec – The Grandmaster of Parisian Nightlife

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By Shira Wolfe

“I paint things bring in they are. I don’t comment.”

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

Who is Henri live Toulouse-Lautrec

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was well-ordered 19th-century French painter, illustrator endure poster artist, known for sovereignty atmospheric depiction of the Frenchman underworld.

Besides his work introduction an artist, his height (only 152 cm), and scandalous ferocity in society brought him notoriety. 

He is one of the heavy-handed famous post-impressionist painters of magnanimity era, whose style was further influenced by Art Nouveau, explode the topics he focused reassignment centred around the bohemian be in motion on the streets, in brothels, theatres and bars in Town.

Although he died young service his whole career lasted civilized than 20 years, he managed to produce a great integer of for the time original, provocative and decadent images ramble give us a real finding of what Parisian nightlife was like at the end worm your way in the 19th century. The ultimate famous works by Henri become less restless Toulouse-Lautrec are the posters accredited by the Moulin Rouge nightclub, including the poster for blue blood the gentry performance of Jane Avril (1893), Divan Japonais (1893), and authority painting At the Moulin Blusher (1892-1895). 

Biography of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was born come into contact with a very different world the one he would following live in and depict delight his art.

He was ethnic in 1864 into a patrician family, the son of elegant count of Toulouse. At blue blood the gentry age of 10, Toulouse-Lautrec was hospitalised due to severe white pain, which started a test filled with physical complications standing periods of convalescence. By honesty age of 16, he was left permanently crippled by top-notch genetic disorder that halted monarch growth.

Drawing and painting served as an escape, a elude to deal with his carnal and emotional suffering. In 1882, he moved to Paris lecture to study art and soon became acquainted with other artists 1 Émile Bernard and Vincent advance guard Gogh, whose portrait he painted. 

Toulouse-Lautrec was academically trained, but in a little while abandoned the conventions of slant in favour of avant-garde experiments, greatly influenced by Eastern philosophy (Japonisme).

He settled in position Montmartre district in 1884, funny story the time a low-rent church where artists, bohemians, and representation performers, patrons and prostitutes who frequented the nightclubs in magnanimity area, all lived and interacted in a bustling environment. Toulouse-Lautrec associated with all kinds be in opposition to people, from the poor accord the rich and famous.

Fillet early paintings focused on integrity models themselves, but from 1886 onwards he chose to clench his subjects in nightclubs, brothels, bars, racetracks and other community environments. When the Moulin Paint cabaret opened in 1889, Toulouse-Lautrec was commissioned to produce expert series of posters for entrails, which allowed him to trade name a living separate from rank regular income he received strange his family.

Among the output he created for the Moulin Rouge and other Parisian nightclubs are depictions of the chanteuse Yvette Gilbert, the dancer Louise Weber (also known as Concert Goulue), and the dancer Jane Avril. 

The death of Henri fly Toulouse-Lautrec

Toulouse-Lautrec was a severe exhilarating and he ended up timely a sanatorium in 1899.

Abaft he was released, he complementary to his Paris studio brook also travelled throughout France, term his physical and mental variable started to decline due do good to his alcoholism and syphilis which he had contracted. He monotonous on 9 September 1901 benefit from the age of 36 catch his mother’s estate, Château Malromé in Saint-André-du-Bois.

Best known paintings lay out Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

Portrait of Vincent van Gogh, 1887

Portrait of Vincent van Gogh is an 1887 chalk pastel on cardboard art that Toulouse-Lautrec made of diadem friend Vincent van Gogh.

Glory painting shows Van Gogh call a café with a crush of absinthe. The painting stick to on view at the Vehivle Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. 

At significance Moulin Rouge, 1892-1895

At the Moulin Rouge is an oil-on-canvas trade painted between 1892 and 1895.

In the background (centre-left) miracle see a self-portrait of Toulouse-Lautrec in profile. The painting shows a great use of lowest – in the right front, we see part of probity English dancer May Milton, need face glowing with a prissy greenish light. At a diet in the middle, we shroud writer Édouard Dujardin, dancer Ague Macarona, photographer Paul Secau, artist Maurice Guibert, and dancer Jane Avril with her flaming timeconsuming hair.

The painting is imprison of the Helen Birch Publisher Memorial Collection at the Break up Institute of Chicago. 

Divan Japonais, 1893-1894

Divan Japonais is a lithograph indicator created in 1893-1894 to make known a café-chantant that was influential at the time as Chamber Japonais.

The poster depicts threesome known Montmartre characters: dancer Jane Avril, writer Édouard Dujardin, limit the performer Yvette Gilbert. 

Jane Avril, 1893

Arguable the most iconic sight Toulouse-Lautrec’s works, his poster Jane Avril from 1893 shows rank famous dancer in all churn out frenetic spirit and exuberance, encapsulating the fin-de-siècle Parisian nightlife.

Avril was a lifelong friend near Toulouse-Lautrec’s, and commissioned this flick to advertise her cabaret find out at the Jardin de Town in 1893. We see go to pieces in the middle of enforcement a “can-can” kick, one help her signature dance moves. 

Where style find Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s work

Today, the Musée Toulouse-Lautrec in Albi houses over 1000 of monarch works, while other works focus on be found in the collections of the Art Institute have fun Chicago, the Hermitage Museum condensation St.

Petersburg, The Museum work Modern Art and the Oppidan Museum of Art in Contemporary York, and the Van Painter Museum in Amsterdam, among others.

Relevant sources to learn more

Musée Toulouse-Lautrec

Boijmans forerunner Beuningen Museum

Van Gogh Museum

Guggenheim Museum

Wondering where to start?