Henri de Toulouse –Lautrec: The Stars and Starlets


Henri de Toulouse –Lautrec’s production is closely related to Parisian worldly life and, coinciding with the height of the café dansant era, it deals with the world of the stars at the end of the century. The glories of Yvette Guilbert, Aristide Bruant, and Jane Avril were mostly recorded by the little artist’s incisive pencil, which portrayed them in action on stage or in poster presentations of the shows. The master’s work documented their triumphs step by step.

Aristide Bruant, bound to Toulouse –Lautrec by a long friendship, was a modest railroad employee who became a famous popular singer and then opened his own cabaret, Le Mirliton, at 84 Boulevrad Rochechouart.

Aristide Bruant

France, 1851–1925.
Composer and song-writer, he created his own genre of very realistic, often anarchical songs with lewd quips addressed to the audience.
Jane Avril (1868-1943)
dancer, singer and actress, Jane Avril did frenetic dances in the fashionable Parisian nightclubs. Later she was also highly successful in London.   

Ethereal, good looking, refined and elegant, yet gifted with devilish energy, and with the nickname “La Melinite” (a substance similar to dynamite), Jane Avril was considered the incarnation of dance. She lived surrounded by a crowded court of admirers, of whom Toulouse –Lautrec was the most constant.
Jane Avril Queen of Montmartre and The Moulin Rouge



An American from Illinois, Loie Fuller was the “butterfly” of Paris. With a specialized team of electricians she perfected a show based on the use of hand-held sticks to twirl veils around her body while standing with her legs still.
Yvette Guilbert (1894, Albi, Musee Toulouse –Lautrec). This charcoal drawing was a study for a never realized poster. The project was refused by Guilbert who saw herself portrayed as very ugly. In a letter to the artist about the portrait she wrote: "For heaven's sake, don't make me so atrociously ugly! Many people who come to visit haven't been able to withhold terrible cries upon seeing it." 

Authorized since 1876, the shows with these dancers and singers were accused of competing with the theater. Actually they were directed toward a popular public, offering a low priced amusement. Despite censure, these shows were the norm in places that allowed freedom of expression.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Thomas Eakins, 1844-1916

Image
Self portrait, Thomas Eakins, 1904. National Academy of Design, New York.  After studying in Europe for nearly four years, the twenty-six-year-old Thomas Eakins returned to Philadelphia, his birthplace, in 1870, where he spent the rest of his life depicting the realities of his milieu with great force and beauty. An uncompromising realism characterizes Thomas Eakins's philosophy of work and life. His rejection of conventional ideas about artistic training (for instance, he required all his students - female, as well as male - to draw from the nude) led, in part, to his forced resignation as director of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1886. So, too, he rejected traditional ideas of beauty in his honest and revealing portraits. Not surprisingly, these essentially private portrayals were unpopular during Eakins's day. Thomas Eakins American, 1844-1916 Portrait of Mary Adeline Williams, 1899 Mary Adeline Williams, or Addie, was a ...
Read more

MOST IMPORTANT WORKS OF ART - Sandro Botticelli (c. 1445[1] – May 17, 1510)

Image
Primavera, The Allegory of Spring c. 1482.  Nature, such an important presence in Renaissance art, is celebrated in Primavera with a profusion of light and colour. This painting is among the most mysterious in all the history of art, and scholars have long tried to unlock its arcane secrets. Even after the various personages have been identified, the overall meaning still remains uncertain. The expression of a culture imbued with symbolic and allegorical allusions like that of the 15th century, the painting lends itself to the most varied hypotheses for interpretation. The title, The Allegory of Spring, by which the work has been known for some time, is based on Vasari's description on Venus: "Venus, whom the Graces are covering with flowers, as a symbol of spring." The subject of this painting is difficult to interpret. Scholars have struggled for decades to elaborate theories to explain every detail of the picture, but no one has yet succeeded in revealing its mea...
Read more

Renoir: Moulin De la Galette

Image
Renoir is the only great painter who never painted a sad painting. Moulin De la Galette is the greatest example of his radiant outlook. It is an anthem to youth and happiness, expressed in the pure colours and light palette of the Impressionists.  Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette 1876. Paris, Musée d'Orsay Renoir captures a party at a popular Montmartre locale, in the greatest ever painting en plein-air . Auguste Renoir was born in 1841 in Limoges, to a tailor father and factory worker mother. He was still a young child when his family moved to Paris. He trained as a craftsman, decorating first porcelain, then fans and curtains. In 1862 he had enough money to pay for painting lessons from Charles Gleyre at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, where he met Monet, Sisley, and Bazille. Along with them, he admired the masters of the previous generations, particularly Corbet, Corot, ad the landscape artists of the Barbizon school. He went with his companions to p...
Read more