AN APPRECIATION: Henri Toulouse Lautrec Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec Monfa was a French Post-Impressionist. Despite severe physical handicaps and family problems, Lautrec became a successful artists during his lifetime. In addition, his art blazed a new trail in graphic art and inspired modern artists such as Pablo Picasso. His unique art transcends his own time, however, and continues to speak to contemporary viewers.
Lautrec was born in Albii in the French Pyrenees on November 24, 1864. His was an ancient aristocratic family. His father, Alphonse, held the title Comte de Toulouse-Lautrec. Like his brother, he had some artistic talent. However, he was rather self-indulgent and something of a womanizer. He paid little attention to his son. Comtesse Adele was a religious woman who doted on her surviving son. (Her other son died in infancy). The Comte and Comtesse were first cousins - - not an uncommon relationship in such families. However, this inbreeding resulted in their son being a sickly child. At age 13, he broke one leg and the next year, he broke the other. Neither injury healed properly. Furthermore, due to an unknown genetic disorder, the bones stopped growing. As a result, when Henri became an adult, he had the torso and head of a grown man but the legs of a child. This made it difficult for him to walk and he used a cane throughout the rest of his life. Furthermore, his height only reached 4 feet 11 inches. Unable to participate in the physical activities boys of his class indulged in, Henri turned to drawing. He particularly liked drawing pictures of horses. His parents arranged for René Princeteau, who was a successful painter of sporting subjects, to give Henri lessons. When he was 18, Henri decided to go to Paris to study art. The Comte was against this idea, viewing art as a fine pastime but not an appropriate profession for an aristocrat. However, his mother used her influence to have Henri enrolled in the studio of Leon Bonnat, a fashionable Parisian portrait painter. After five months, Lautrec shifted to the studio of Fernand Cormon. Like Bonnnat, Corman was a conservative academic painter. However, he allowed his students more freedom to explore some of the new avant garde ideas that were emerging in Paris. Lautrec also met and became friends with a number of other young artists that he met through Corman's studio including Emile Bernard and Vincent Van Gogh. In addition to working diligently in his classes, Lautrec also frequented the Louvre and other museums in Paris. Thus, he became exposed to the work of the Old Masters. However, some of the new trends in art had a much greater influence on his artistic development. The first such influence was the work of the Impressionists. By the early 1880s, the Impressionists were becoming increasingly popular, especially among young artists. Their use of brighter colors and interest in depicting modern life attracted the young artists of Paris. Lautrec found Edgar Degas' exploration of the human form and Parisian night life particularly interesting. In addition, Japan had recently ended its centuries of isolation and was now actively trading with Europe and America. As a result, Japanese wood block prints were now reaching the West. Like many of his contemporaries, Lautrec was fascinated by the Japanese artists' use of large expanses of color and their composition, which differed from conventional European composition. Yet another influence was photography, which was becoming more widespread during this period. The cropping of photographs pointed to new ways of composing paintings. Also, artists liked the spontaneity of snapshots. Paris also opened the door to new opportunities for Lautrec's private life. Rather than reside with other aristocrats, Lautrec took up residence in Montmartre. This section of Paris was inhabited by artists, intellectuals and bohemians. In addition, it was becoming a center of night life with cafes, dancehalls and brothels. Unchaperoned, the young Lautrec dove into this nightlife and became a familiar figure, popular with its denizens. The owners of the various cafes and night clubs wanted to publicize their establishments and the entertainers who performed in them. A new way of doing this was by posting lithograph posters throughout the city. Seeing the artistic possibilities of such posters, Lautrec briefly went to England to study lithography, which was more advanced there than in France. When he returned, he started producing posters that combined the colors of the Impressionists, the composition of Japanese prints and the spontaneity of photographs. Lautrec's posters became an immediate hit. Indeed, one problem was that people would take them down as soon as they were hung in order to have them as collectors items. Consequently, Lautrec had more commissions than he could handle. During his career, Lautrec produced some 360 lithographs. At the same time as he was producing posters, Lautrec was making other types of art. He painted portraits of friends and acquaintances, often using unconventional materials such as cardboard for the support. He also took up residence in various brothels where he did paintings and drawings of the prostitutes and their daily lives. For the most part, these were not erotic but rather documentary works by a seemingly detached observer. This is not to say that Lautrec did not indulge in the life he depicted in his works. He was known for his sexual prowess among the prostitutes. He also appears to have had relations with some of the entertainers who appear in his posters. Perhaps his most significant relationship was with the model - - and later artist - - Suzanne Valadon. Indeed, she changed her name to Suzanne from Marie because Lautrec said that her posing for older artists reminded him of the biblical Suzanne and the Elders. Lautrec's paintings and drawings were praised by the critics and widely exhibited during his lifetime. He participated in the Salon des Arts Incohérents in 1886 and 1889. Along with Bernard, he participated in an exhibition organized by Vincent Van Gogh in Paris in 1887. He also was invited to exhibit in Brussels with the avant-garde group Les XX along with Van Gogh, Paul Cezanne, Paul Gauguin and Georges Seurat. By the 1890s, he had also exhibited in England and America. Thus, unlike many of his contemporaries, Lautrec was a successful artist and financially secure during his lifetime. Still, Lautrec felt himself to be an outsider. His personality, conversational ability and sarcastic wit made him quite popular. He also provided emotional support to people in trouble including Oscar Wilde and Van Gogh. However, he was very sensitive about his appearance and his size. Also, his poor relationship with his father was a source of anguish. His mother supported him throughout his life but he pushed her away to such an extent that she felt compelled to flee Paris. By 1899, the combined effects of heavy drinking, syphilis and constant work led to a nervous breakdown. His family committed him to Folie Saint James, a sanitarium. While there, in order to prove that he was sane, Lautrec did a series of pictures from memory of circus scenes. When he was released, Lautrec continued to work but with a somewhat more somber palette. Soon, however, Lautrec started drinking again. This led to a stroke in 1901. He was taken to his mother's estate where he died a few months before his 37th birthday. See our profiles of these other Post Impressionists
Emile Bernard Paul Cezanne Paul Gauguin Henri Toulouse Lautrec Odlion Redon Henri Rousseau George Seurat Paul Signac Vincent Van Gogh |
Lautrec became a celebrity in Paris with his lithograph posters advertising the city's nightlife.
Lautrec also pursued other forms of art. Above: A portrait of Suzanne Valadon. Below: "The Laundress", a genre work depicting working class life.
Above: "La Promenuse."
Below: "The Englishman at the Moulin Rouge." |
Artist appreciation - Henri Toulouse-Lautrec