Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (redirected from Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri (Marie Raymond) de)

Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri de 

(Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa). Born Nov. 24, 1864, in Albi; died Sept. 9, 1901, at Château de Malromé, near Bordeaux. French painter and graphic artist.

Toulouse-Lautrec was descended from an ancient aristocratic family. Beginning in 1881 he lived mostly in Paris, where he studied with L. Bonnat in 1883 and with F. Cormon from 1884. He was influenced by the works of the Impressionists, especially those of E. Degas, as well as by Japanese prints. In his first important paintings, however, he strove for an extreme individualization of images. An example is the portrait of E. Bernard (1885, Täte Gallery, London).

In the second half of the 1880’s, Toulouse-Lautrec turned to the subjects that were to constitute the central theme of his mature works: the daily life and amusements of Paris’ Bohemian world. Estranged from his own world, he sought release from its stifling bourgeois conventions in the ephemeral gaiety of the cafés, dance halls, and other haunts of Montmartre. There, without moralizing, he depicted the Parisian demimonde, recording with keen observation and irony but also with great sensitivity the social and moral deformity of the life around him.

In his paintings of the late 1880’s, Toulouse-Lautrec already evinced the characteristic elements of his style: an expressive and varied drawing, ranging from the sharp and almost grotesque to the elegantly supple; a restless, fragmented composition; long, rhythmic contours; quick, disjointed brushstrokes; and striking contrasts between a cold, almost metallic, overall tonal palette and local spots of vivid color. By means of these techniques he sought to delineate the nightlife of Montmartre and its denizens —the cabaret singers and dancers and their dissolute, pleasure-loving admirers, among whom the artist often painted himself. By capturing the essence of the mise-en-scene, the telling poses and gestures of his figures, and the harsh, almost symbolic effects of artificial lighting, Toulouse-Lautrec succeeded in conveying with originality the moral depravity of fin-de-siècle Paris. Moreover, he brought to his task an unusual psychological insight that enabled him to apprehend his subjects’ desperate lives and the contemporary mores by which they were affected.

These qualities of Toulouse-Lautrec’s art are evident in Gueule de bois (1888, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, Mass.); Au bal du Moulin de la Galette (1889, Art Institute of Chicago); At the Moulin Rouge: The Dance (1890, private collection, Philadelphia); A la mie, a gouache (1891, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston); At the Moulin Rouge (1892, Art Institute of Chicago); La Goulue Entering the Moulin Rouge (1892, D. Levy Collection, New York); Jane Avril (1893, Niarchos Collection, Paris); Jane Avril at the Jardín de Paris (1893); Yvette Guilbert (1894, Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow); Gabriel Tapié de Céleyran (1894, Musée Toulouse-Lautrec, Albi); Au Salon de la Rue des Moulins (1894–95, Musée Toulouse-Lautrec, Albi); Marcelle Lender Dancing in “Chilpéric” (1895–96, John Hay Whitney Collection, New York); and The Modiste (1900, Musée Toulouse-Lautrec, Albi).

One of the outstanding masters of Postimpressionism, Toulouse-Lautrec in the 1890’s displayed in his stylistic experimentations an affinity with the exponents of art nouveau. The similarities are most evident in Toulouse-Lautrec’s graphic art, particularly the lithographic posters, with their spare style, fancifully convoluted drawing, and clear contours surrounding areas of intense color. Examples are Moulin Rouge: La Goulue (1891), Le Divan japonais (1892), Aristide Bruant dans son cabaret (1892), and Aristide Bruant at the Ambassadeurs (1892).

Toulouse-Lautrec’s series of lithographs and numerous drawings are distinguished by their vitality and imaginative, often grotesque caricature. Among the artist’s other works are Artilleryman Saddling His Horse (1879, Musée Toulouse-Lautrec, Albi), In the Circus Fernando: The Equestrienne (1888, Art Institute of Chicago), La Toilette (1896, Louvre, Paris), and the portrait Paul Leclerq (1897, Louvre, Paris).

REFERENCES

Perruchot, H. Tuluz-Lotrek. [Afterword by O. V. Mamontova.] Moscow, 1969. (Translated from French.)
Vorkunova, N. Toluz-Lotrek. Moscow, 1972.
Joyant, M. Toulouse-Lautrec. Paris, 1927.

V. A. MARKOV