Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

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Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

    Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was arguably the greatest graphic artist of his time; he is best remembered for his bold, colourful posters of Parisian entertainers. His childhood years were spent at his family chateau in the southwest of France where he broke both of his legs and therefore stunted his growth. This left him ill proportioned and dwarfish. This unfortunate event probably helped his artistic ability as he spent most of his time on his own.

    Lautrec was at his peak as a painter and poster artist in the early 1890’s at the time of the post impressionists.

    During his life Lautrec felt most comfortable in the nightclubs, dance halls and brothels of Paris. The narrow life he led is clearly shown in the art that he produced. Lautrec was best renowned for his paintings of the Moulin Rouge and other Parisian entertainers. Lautrec was not the first artist to make the Parisian entertainers serious subjects to paint, Edouard Manet and Edgar Degaswere among the first to paint the Paris nightlife and others soon followed their lead like Lautrec.

    Although Lautrec’s many paintings looked spontaneous and carefree he as never “slapdash” as in he was never messy or careless. He was in fact a dedicated craftsman who knew a lot about the technical matters of his work, especially printmaking. Even after a rough night he would be up to supervise the printing of his lithographs bright and early. Lautrec always carried a small sketchbook with him so he could quickly draw or sketch whatever caught his attention and today thousands of his rapid drawings still survive in the original sketchbooks. He has also reached the elevated position of a dead artist where there is a museum dedicated to him and his work in Albi, France close to where he was born near Toulouse. In the actual paintings of his sketches he tried to keep the spontaneity of the first sketch and therefore liked to work quickly. To work fast he liked to use paint that was thinned considerably with turpentine, which was called peinture a l’essence, which allowed him to so called ‘draw with the brush’. He also liked to use absorbent cardboard instead of canvas so the paint would dry quicker and therefore could maintain his momentum.

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    Most painters have a trademark technique and Lautrec’s trademark was the printmaking technique called ‘crachis’ or spitting ink. He achieved this technique by flicking ink onto the lithographic stone with an old toothbrush to give the print a speckled effect.

    The first picture I have chosen to talk about is Lautrec’s first important painting, which is called ‘At the Circus Fernando’ which was painted in 1888. The painting includes his favourite clown Cha-u-kao who he painted many times before. This early example of Lautrec’s caricature and graphic style shows the ringmaster and a bareback rider at ...

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