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Maya Simkin ARTH-210-002 February 16, 2017

In 1891, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) created a lithograph poster depicting two dancers at the Moulin Rouge, a popular club in Montmartre, France. Moulin Rouge: La Goulue and a proof of it currently hang at The Phillips Collection as part of their exhibit on Toulouse-Lautrec. The work falls nearly at the end of Toulouse-Lautrec’s short life and is an example of his most known work, capturing the fin de siecle life of the French partygoers in a large-size print. It was wildly successful, especially as his first series of lithographic advertisement posters. It doesn’t fit neatly into any category of art, but rather draws on Japanese woodblock prints, Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, as well as a more abstract form of art. Moulin Rouge: La Goulue is a part of a series that Toulouse-Lautrec was commissioned to do by the Bal du Moulin Rouge. The main subject of this piece is La Goulue herself, The Glutton, otherwise known as Louise Weber, the “shameless Queen of Montmartre,” notorious for downing alcohol in bars and rumored to have invented the cancan dance (Yaneff International Gallery, 2017). Her dance partner is Jacques Renaudin, a wine merchant, who is in the process of getting his hat kicked off by Weber’s wild moves. Behind them is a silhouetted crowd, with lamps above their heads and around them. The name of the dance hall is repeated thrice on the top and announces the performer, who will party tous les soirs, every night. As the words descend on the crowd, it’s a hit-you-over-the-head advertisement. Like many in Paris, Toulouse-Lautrec was undoubtedly influenced by the influx of Japanese art and culture into the Western world. Similar to Japanese woodblock prints, ToulouseLautrec used areas of flat color, a technique also used by the likes of Manet and Gauguin. He also employed “strong outlines, silhouettes, cropped compositions, and oblique angles that are all

typical of woodblock prints by artists like Katsushika Hokusai and Ando Hiroshige” (Michael, 2010). Cropped composition also takes note from photography and adds to the condensed space of the picture. Along with Japanese art, Toulouse-Lautrec clearly drew on some early Impressionists like Degas and Manet, as well as Post-Impressionists like Matisse and Gaugin. One example of this is Toulouse-Lautrec’s subject matter. Unlike the art that preceded it that focused on elite society, Toulouse-Lautrec made efforts to go down into the proclaimed gutters of society to find subjects for his work. In this work he portrayed a dancer, in others he depicted prostitutes. People from all walks of life gained a role as his equal and he had little judgement (Trachtman, 2005). This opened a world to the elite which ended up getting them interested in the rugged society. Soon, Montmartre became a tourist attraction for rich people and lost its cafe society charm. Another distancing from the elite class is the actual process used by Toulouse-Lautrec. Lithography allowed him to rip thousands of prints from a single stone, making the work inexpensive to purchase. This meant that it became accessible to purchase unlike painting which was unique to each canvas and typically took a longer time to create (Trachtman, 2005). Regular people ended up owning Toulouse-Lautrec’s prints all over, making him exceedingly popular. He also managed to make his subjects famous as well as his commissioners. When comparing the black-and-white proof to the final product, it’s clear that color plays a vital role in the work. The finished poster, printed in yellow, red, blue, and black (few colors since it is a lithograph), employs the colors to connect and highlight certain elements. By making the title of the club and La Goulue both in pink, Toulouse-Lautrec equated them, making her the face of the business. To add texture, Toulouse-Lautrec used a splatter technique called crachis to through bits of paint all over the surface (Michael, 2010). The result is Seurat-esque, making it

seem like more colors have actually been used. Similar to Degas’s dancers, this dancer also has disappearing lines making up her skirt. It looks like she is moving too quickly to be captured with a pencil. The small amount of lines give the piece the sketchy Impressionist look. The light and brisk lines of the skirt are motion blur, giving the print the appearance of a video, pulling the viewer into a scene rather than giving a snapshot. The snapshot element is exacerbated by the fact that the skirt is left white. ToulouseLautrec’s work clearly draws on Impressionism here by looking “unfinished,” though his manner of blankness is entirely different from Impressionist “unfinished sketches.” The choice to leave the skirt white in the dead-middle of the piece is effective in making it and the dancer noticeable. The “missing” part of the poster is precisely the aspect that draws us in. Another characteristic that is prevalent in this work as well as the work of other artists is compressed space. Almost all of the space is being used, whether by the audience, the placement of the dancers, lights, or words. The piece is vertical meaning less of the landscape is seen. The floor is tilted upwards, giving the audience of the painting a look under Weber’s skirt. This voyeuristic presentation is more inviting than creepy in this case. It’s another element that works to bring the viewer into the party alongside the blank middle spot. Fleeting lines contrast with bold outlines in this piece. By choosing to represent everything but the skirt in thick lines, Toulouse-Lautrec makes it so that no one else is in motion. Everyone is watching La Goulue. Making the lights on the right with thin lines and the ones on the left in thick bulges gives the impression that the viewer is drunk and spinning. This again brings the audience of the painting closer into the French party scene. The proof of the piece also distances Toulouse-Lautrec from Impressionists as it shows a heavy degree of planning. Moreover, another difference lies in the fact that these posters were all

commissions, advertisements, whereas most other Impressionist and Post-Impressionist work was barely done with a paycheck let alone a hiring. Making the transition from modernism into abstraction is another important thing Toulouse Lautrec does. “He used the yellow globes of electric stage lights— new in Paris—for instance, to make vivid patterns across the poster, a touch of abstract art no one had seen before” (Trachtman, 2005). Toulouse-Lautrec also foreshadows the absence of the artist’s hand in painting by denying brushstrokes in his work and relying on prints, despite some of his work indeed being painting. Also in line with experiments done by the Impressionists, Toulouse-Lautrec plays with light. While many impressionists practiced documenting different light in their en plein air works, Toulouse-Lautrec changed his course to play with man-made stage lights, illuminating characters in harsh, overexposed ways or keeping them in stark darkness. These qualities are all important historically in that they characterized the French nightlife scene. Toulouse-Lautrec made caricatures of real people in real places and got people to go to them. People were shown that would normally never be put on mass posters and the elite stopped being the only subjects of art. The combination of advertisement and art is also unprecedented. Michael writes that without Toulouse-Lautrec, there wouldn’t be an Andy Warhol (2010). Trachtman argues it was Toulouse-Lautrec’s “unconventional realism, embrace of commercial art, eye for celebrity and increasingly abstract graphic designs” that put him at the vanguard of the art scene (2005). Toulouse-Lautrec successfully moved art into another stage, drawing from Impressionists and Post Impressionists and progressing forward.

Bibliography Michael, Cora. "Henri De Toulouse-Lautrec." The Met's Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. N.p., May 2010. Web. 15 Feb. 2017. Trachtman, Paul. "Toulouse-Lautrec." Smithsonian.com. Smithsonian Institution, 01 May 2005. Web. 15 Feb. 2017. Yaneff International Gallery. "Toulouse-Lautrec - PL. 122 - Moulin Rouge - La Goulue." Toulouse-Lautrec - PL. 122 - Moulin Rouge - La Goulue. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Feb. 2017....