Henri Toulouse-Lautrec: paintings by the artist. Henri de Toulouse Lautrec, paintings and creativity, gloss and poverty of nightlife in Paris

Are you here: Fairy tale scenarios

Only next to the clowns, acrobats, dancers and prostitutes Henri de Toulouse - Lautrec felt at home. Contemporaries did not accept the work of the artist. Having a natural talent and not being constrained by means, Toulouse-Lautrec could receive a brilliant art education. However, having mastered the basics of painting from modern masters, he began to develop his own, innovative aesthetics, far from academicism. Refusal of naturalism and detail (no folds on clothes, carefully traced hairs), emphasized, close to caricature, grotesque manner of rendering facial features and plasticity of characters, an abundance of movement and vivid emotions - these are the main characteristics of his style.

November 24, 1864 in the city of Albi, in the old family castle of the Counts of Toulouse Lautrec, a boy was born, who was named Henri de Toulouse - Lautrec. Lautrec's mother, Countess Adele, nee Tapier de Seleyran, and Count Alphonse de Toulouse - Lautrec - Monfa, - the artist's father, belonged to the highest circles of the aristocracy in France. Parents were especially reverent towards little Henri, in him they saw the successor of the family, the heir to one of the most significant families of the country. Count Alphonse imagined how his son would accompany him on his walks, riding through the count's lands and falconry. From an early age, the father taught the boy horse riding and hunting terminology, introduced him to his favorites - the stallion Usurper and the mare Volga. Henri grew up as a sweet, charming child, pleased his loved ones. With the light hand of one of the grandmothers of Lautrec, the youngest in the family was called " Little Treasure". Cheerful, agile, attentive and inquisitive, with lively dark eyes, he delighted everyone who saw him. At the age of three, he demanded a pen to sign. He was told that he could not write. “Well, let it be,” Henri replied, “I will draw a bull.”

Childhood is considered to be the happiest time in a person's life. But this happiness was overshadowed by drama or even tragedy for Henri. Born with poor health, he was often ill, grew slowly, and until the age of five his fontanel did not overgrow. The countess was worried about her boy and primarily blamed herself for his illnesses: after all, her husband was her cousin, and children in related marriages are often born unhealthy. When her second son, Richard, who was born two and a half years after Henri, died at the age of eleven months, Adele finally established herself in the idea that her marriage was a mistake. And it's not just about the illnesses of children - a pious woman gave her husband a lot, but over time they family life became filled with misunderstanding, bitterness and disunity. For a long time, Adele tried to put up with the count's rudeness and betrayal, with his quirks and whims, but in August 1868 there was a final break - she stopped considering Alphonse her husband. In a letter to her sister, she said that now she intended to treat him only as a cousin. However, they still portrayed spouses and were polite to each other in public - after all, they had a son, and in addition, it was necessary to observe the rules of decency accepted in society. But since then, all her attention, all her love has been given to Henri.

Count Alphonse loved aristocratic entertainment - hunting, horseback riding, horse racing - and passed on to his son a love of horses and dogs.

1881. Oil on wood

1881. Oil on canvas

The count was also interested in art and often came with his young son to the workshop of his friend, the artist Rene Prensto, with whom Henri soon became friends. Prensto was not only an animal painter, he was a dexterous rider, a lover of dog hunting and racing.

With great knowledge of the matter, he painted horses, dogs, hunting scenes, and real portraits of animals came out from under his brush - he could convey their character, habits, grace. Soon the younger Lautrec began to come alone to his father's friend. He could spend hours admiring how Prensto creates his paintings, and then he himself took a pencil and tried to leave a clearly visible and bright trace of everything that caught his eye on a sheet of paper: dogs, horses, birds. He was good at it, and Prensto could not help but admit that the boy definitely had talent.

In Paris, where the Lautrec family moved in 1872, Henri is determined to the Lyceum. It grows very slowly; the smallest among peers, receives the nickname "Kid". The margins of his notebooks filled with drawings much faster than the pages with letters and numbers.

Often skipping classes due to constant illnesses, Henri nevertheless studied with honors. After several years of study, Countess Adele was rightfully proud of her boy - he not only drew breathtakingly, but was also recognized as one of the best students of his lyceum. She rejoiced at her son's success, but she was more and more worried about his health: the doctors suspected he had bone tuberculosis - Henri was already ten years old, and he still remained very small. The wall at which all the cousins and cousins \u200b\u200bin their estate noted the growth and which the Little Treasure tried to avoid, the servants called among themselves " wailing wall».

At the end of May 1878, an unforeseen misfortune happened to Henri. He was sitting in the kitchen on a low chair, and when he tried to get up, leaning clumsily on his stick, without the help of which he no longer had the strength to move, he fell and broke the neck of the femur of his left leg. And barely recovering from a previous severe injury, after a little over a year, Henri stumbled on a walk and broke the neck of his right thigh ... Parents full of despair did not lose hope in Henri's recovery. But the boy did not allow tears, did not complain - on the contrary, he tried to cheer up those around him. The best and most widely known doctors came to Henri, he was taken to the most expensive resort places. Soon, the disease dormant in his body made itself felt in full force. Some doctors attributed Lautrec's disease to the group of polyepiphyseal dysplasia. According to others, the reason for Henri's small stature was osteopetrosis (painful thickening of the bone), which proceeds in a mild form.

His limbs stopped growing altogether, only his head and body became disproportionately huge in relation to his short legs and arms.

The figure on "children's legs" with "children's hands" looked very ridiculous. Charming child turned into a real freak. Henri tried to look as little as possible in the mirror - after all, apart from large, burning - black eyes, there was nothing attractive in his appearance left. The nose became thick, the protruding lower lip hung over the sloping chin, the short hands grew disproportionately huge. Yes, and the words that the deformed mouth uttered were distorted by a lisp, the sounds jumped one on top of the other, he swallowed the syllables and, speaking, spattered with saliva. Such tongue-tiedness, coupled with the existing defect in the musculoskeletal system, did not at all contribute to the development of Henri's spiritual harmony. Fearing the ridicule of others, Lautrec he learned to make fun of himself and his own ugly body, without waiting for others to start making fun of and mocking him. Such a technique of self-defense was used by this amazing and courageous person, and this technique worked. When people first met Lautrec, they laughed not at him, but at his witticisms, and when they got to know Henri better, they certainly fell under his charm.

Lautrec understood that fate, having deprived him of health and external attractiveness, endowed him with extraordinary and original drawing abilities. But to become a worthy artist, one had to study. The painter Leon Bonnat was then very famous in Paris, and Toulouse-Lautrec signed up for his courses. Lautrec believes all the remarks of the teacher and tries to destroy everything original in himself. His classmates only in the early days sarcastically whispered and laughed at the clumsy Henri - soon no one attached any importance to his ugliness. He was affable, witty, cheerful, and incomparably talented. After Bonna dismissed all his students, he goes to Cormon, who painted large canvases on prehistoric subjects. The students loved him, he was a good teacher. Cormon Lautrec learned the secrets of painting and graphics, but he did not like his indulgence, he was merciless to himself.

Henri's mother fully shared her son's interests and admired him, but his father, Count Alphonse, did not at all like what the heir to the family did.

Oil on cardboard

1880 - 1890. Oil on canvas

Canvas, oil

Drawing, he believed, may be one of the hobbies of an aristocrat, but should not become the main business of his whole life. The count demanded that his son sign the paintings with a pseudonym. Henri became more and more alien even for the family in which he grew up and was brought up, he called himself the “withered branch” of the family tree. Alphonse de Toulouse - Lautrec Monfat fully confirmed this by giving the birthright, which was supposed to be inherited by his son, his younger sister Alika. Henri began to sign the paintings with an anagram of his last name - Treklo.

In the summer of 1882, on their way to the south, where the countess still took her son for treatment, they stopped at their estate in Albi. There, Henri for the last time noted his height at the "wailing wall": one meter fifty-two centimeters. He was nearly eighteen years old, an age when most young men can think of nothing but the opposite sex. In this, Lautrec differed little from his peers - in addition to an ugly body, ruthless Nature endowed him with a tender, sensitive soul and a powerful masculine temperament. He fell in love for the first time as a child - with his cousin Jeanne d'Armagnac. Henri lay with a broken leg and waited for the girl to come to visit him. As he got older, Lautrec also learned the sensual side of love. His first woman was Marie Charlet - a young, thin, like a young man, model, completely innocent in appearance and depraved in her soul. She was brought to Henri by a friend in the workshop, the Norman Charles - Edouard Lucas, who believed that Lautrec would be cured of painful complexes when he knew a woman. Marie visited the artist several times, finding the connection with him piquant. But Henri soon refused her services - this "animal passion" was too far from his ideas about love. However, the relationship with the young model showed how strong his temperament was, and memories of sensual pleasures did not allow Lautrec, as before, to spend lonely evenings at work. Realizing that a worthy girl from a decent society is unlikely to reciprocate, he went to Montmartre - to prostitutes, cafeteria singers and dancers. Among the new hobby - street life in Montmartre, Henri did not feel crippled; life opened up to him in a new way.

Montmartre in the mid-1880s ... All Paris rushed here for entertainment. The halls of cafes and restaurants, cabarets and theaters were quickly filled with a motley audience and the holiday began ... Here their kings and queens, their rulers of thoughts, ruled. Among them, the first place was occupied by the coupletist Bruant, the owner of the restaurant " Elise - Montmartre". The recognized queen of Montmartre in those days was La Goulue - "Glutton" - that was the name of the sixteen-year-old Alsatian Louise Weber for her crazy passion for food.

He sat down at a table, ordered a drink, and then took out his sketchbook with pencils and, intently watching the frantic dance of the Alsatian, drew, trying to catch every movement of her body, every change in her expression. Her fresh, wrinkle-free skin, shining eyes, sharp nose, her legs, which she tossed high in the dance, foaming the lace of her skirts, the shamelessness with which she twirled her backside, expressing a voluptuous impulse of passion with her whole being - all this Henri captured in his drawings. Next to La Goulue was her indispensable partner Valentin, whom the public nicknamed Boneless. The movements of this couple were so erotic and coveted that they could not but turn on the audience, and each performance of La Goulue and Valentin Beskostny was accompanied by a wild ovation.

In 1884, Henri came from Paris to visit his "poor holy mother," as the artist called her. After a few weeks, which he spent with his parents, Lautrec returned to the capital completely happy - his father agreed to give him money to buy his own workshop in Montmartre. He is a full-fledged inhabitant of Paris. For Lautrec Montmartre became a hospitable home, and its inhabitants - Montmartre actresses and singers, dancers, prostitutes and drunkards became his favorite young models, rethought heroines of the brightest, most impressive drawings, lithographs, posters, advertising posters and paintings. It was they who, despised by society, gave him tenderness, caress and warmth, which they gave him so generously, and which he so voluptuously craved. In many of Lautrec's works, there are scenes in brothels, their inhabitants, to whom he, a hereditary aristocrat, felt sympathy and understood like no one else. After all, this “humpbacked Don Juan”, like them, was an outcast.

In 1886, Lautrec met Van Gogh in the workshop of Cormon, painted his portrait in the manner of a new friend.

A rebellion against the teacher is brewing in the workshop. Lautrec joins his friends Anquetin, Bernard and Van Gogh. Now he is defending his identity. Arranges an exhibition of his drawings in Mirliton, some of them illustrate Bruant's songs. Vincent decides to put on an exhibition of his friends at a working restaurant. However, the common people did not accept innovative painting. And in 1888, Lautrec received an invitation to take part in the exhibition of the "Group of Twenty" in Brussels. Among the members of the group - Signac, Whistler, Anquetin. Lautrec is present at the opening day. Defending Van Gogh, he challenges the artist de Gru who insulted him to a duel; the duel was averted. Critics drew attention to the work of Lautrec, noting his hard drawing and evil wit.

Gradually, Montmartre invents something new, never ceasing to amaze. New establishments are emerging. In 1889, Joseph Oller announced the opening of the Moulin Rouge cabaret.

On the Boulevard de Clichy, the wings of the red cabaret windmill spun. In the evenings, in the noisy hall of the entertainment establishment, one wall of which was absolutely mirrored to create the illusion of space, it was not overcrowded - all of Paris was going to look at the brilliant Valentine and La Goulue, lured by the director " Moulin rouge from Elise. From that evening Toulouse - Lautrec became a frequent guest of this place. Everything that attracted and attracted so much in Elise and Moulin de la Galette was now concentrated in Oller's cabaret. Henri spent all his evenings at the Moulin Rouge, surrounded by his friends, drawing and incessantly witty and joking, so that a casual visitor to the cabaret could assume that this wonderful freak was one of the local attractions.

Encouraged by success, Lautrec paints twenty canvases a year. His constant themes are prostitutes, cabaret dancers, portraits of friends. He broke with naturalism, he was not able to embellish reality, in his grotesque and irony - pain, awareness of the tragic side of life. In a large canvas "Dance in" Moulin rouge”he writes to the audience of the famous cabaret, his friends at the table, the famous dancer Valentin Beskostny, who is paired with one of the dancers in a quadrille. They said about the artist that he writes "the sorrow of laughter and the hell of fun."

In January 1891, before the start of the new season, Oller ordered Toulouse-Lautrec a poster advertising the Moulin Rouge. Of course, it should have cabaret stars that attract attention - Valentin and La Goulue "in the midst of a sparkling quadrille."

The advertising posters, which came out at the end of September and were a great success, were pasted all over Paris. Fiacres (hired carriages) with posters glued on drove around the city. This poster is one of classical works French Post-Impressionism. In the center of the poster is La Goulue, depicted in profile and dancing in front of the audience. He glorified the Moulin Rouge, and even more - the artist.

Montmartre took a special, and rather important, place in the life of Toulouse-Lautrec. Here he improves and draws plots for his paintings, here he feels at ease and free, here he finds respect and love. The inhabitants of the salon simply adored their regular and gave him their love. After La Goulue, the busty beauty Rosa with bright red hair reigned in his heart, then there were other beauties - “little Henri” in Montmartre, no one could resist her lovemaking. In Parisian houses of rendezvous he is always warmly and friendly received, here he feels at ease, paints local models in an intimate setting not intended for prying eyes: sleeping, half-dressed, changing clothes, at the toilet - with combs and basins, stockings and towels, cooking series of paintings and lithographs They are» (« Elles»).

For a time he even lived in brothels. He did not hide where his house was, and, as if proud of it, he easily gave his address and laughed when someone was shocked. On the Rue Moulin, Lautrec was particularly inspired by the exclusive and sophisticated interiors. Even quite respectable ladies, mostly foreigners, came here to admire the decoration of the rooms. And everyone in Paris was talking about the incredible beauty of the inhabitants of this "temple of love."

The hostess of the institution, Madame Baron, made sure that Lautrec's workshop was comfortable, and then persuaded Toulouse-Lautrec to decorate the walls of the brothel with paintings he painted. Her wards, young and not very young, quenched his hunger for passion, and they did it with great willingness and tenderness, but “ No amount of money can buy this delicacy he said. On Sundays, Monsieur Henri played a game of dice, the winner had the honor of spending time with the artist. And when the wards of the tempters of love Madame Baron had days off, Lautrec observed the tradition, which he himself invented, to arrange evenings in the brothel, where the girls, dressed in transparent and very light-weight robes, waltzed in a noble manner with each other to the music of a mechanical piano. Watching the life of a brothel, Lautrec was amazed at how these weak and unfortunate creatures, caught in the trap of debauchery and immoral corruption of everything and everyone, tried to keep a tight mask on themselves.

In 1892, Lautrec exhibited nine paintings in Brussels with the Group of Twenty. He is appointed a member of the committee for hanging pictures at the Independents. The public calls his art shameless, the artists see him as a successor to Degas. Often, Lautrec turned the superiority of his models into ugliness, he was never noble and condescending to the models. In 1894, one of his main models was Yvette Guilbert, who was famous in those years as a cafeteria singer, who once called him a "genius of deformation." Yvette he painted many times. The artist also depicted the singer on the lid of a ceramic tea table. He tries different techniques, including stained glass. Suddenly he is fond of racers and cyclists and writes a large canvas "".

Yvette Gilbert just captivated him. When Lautrec first saw Guilbert on stage, he wanted to write a poster for the singer and, having done this, sent her a drawing. Yvette knew that she had a repulsive beauty, but she did not suffer at all about this, she was flirtatious and enjoyed good success with men and the public. The poster of Lautrec discouraged her somewhat - she saw herself completely different, not so ugly, but Guilbert understood that the sketch was a tribute to the sympathy and respect of an outstanding artist. She did not order a poster for Henri, although the artist himself, whom she had never seen before, only heard about him, interested her. "We'll come back to this topic, but for God's sake, don't make me look so scary!" she wrote to him. But Lautrec was not used to retreating so easily - he decided to release an album of lithographs dedicated to the singer. Once he paid her a visit - then Yvette first saw him. His ugliness at first stunned her, but looking into his expressive black eyes, Guilbert was subdued. Yvette remembered that day forever: she invited him to dine together, they talked a lot, and soon she was completely under the spell of Henri ... This meeting was followed by others, he came to her and painted, painted ... The sessions were stormy, the artist and his model often quarreled - it seemed to him that it was a fabulous pleasure to anger her.

Album « Yvette Guilbert"(sixteen lithographs) was published in 1894. The singer, and part-time model of Lautrec, treated him approvingly, but then her friends convinced her that she looked disgusting there and that the artist should have been punished by the offender in court for humiliated dignity and public insult.

However, numerous laudatory responses began to appear in the newspaper press, and Yvette had to come to terms with her merciless portrait painter. Perhaps now no one would remember that in Paris on Montmartre in late XIX- at the beginning of the 20th century, such a singer sang - Yvette Gilbert, but history has preserved the memory of her thanks to him, a brilliant freak Henri Toulouse - Lautrec.

He glorified the dancer Jean Avril, whom he met in a restaurant " Jardin de Paris". In contrast to the absurd, harsh La Goulue, Jean was soft, feminine, "intelligent." This illegitimate daughter of a demi-monde lady and an Italian aristocrat suffered from her mother, a rude, perverted and unbalanced woman, who vented all her failures on her daughter. One day, unable to bear the humiliation and beatings, Jean ran away from home. Her solace was music and dance. She never sold herself and started romances only with those who could awaken warm feelings in her. Zhana understood art, distinguished by refinement of manners, nobility and some kind of spirituality. According to Henri, she was "like a teacher". In the drawings, Lautrec managed to convey her, as one of his friends put it, "the charm of depraved virginity." Jean, who highly appreciated the talent of Lautrec, willingly posed for the artist and sometimes with pleasure played the role of the hostess in his workshop.

Gradually, the works of Toulouse-Lautrec were printed and sold throughout the country. The artist's works were exhibited at large exhibitions in France, Brussels and London. He became so famous that fakes under Lautrec began to appear on the markets, which meant success.

But fame did not change the artist's way of life in any way: he worked just as hard and had just as much fun, did not miss any costume balls, or premieres in theaters, or parties with his Montmartre friends. Lautrec lived as if he was afraid to miss something, not to be in time somewhere in this life - excitedly, feverishly, joyfully. "Life is Beautiful!" was one of his favorite exclamations. And only close friends knew what bitterness was hidden behind these actions and words. He also drank - a lot, but only very good and expensive drinks. He was convinced that high quality alcohol could not cause serious harm. Lautrec loved to mix different drinks, receiving an unusual bouquet. He was the first in France to start making cocktails and got incredible pleasure from listening to the praise of his guests, who enthusiastically joined the new drinks. Who only then did not visit him, and all his guests knew that Lautrec was supposed to drink. His fellow students in the workshop of Cormon Anquetin and Bernard, and the young Van Gogh, who introduced him to Japanese art, and the insidious Valadon, the artist and model of Renoir, who seemed to be playing some kind of subtle game with Lautrec - either appeared in his life or disappeared ...

After some time, he no longer needed expensive fine liquors and cognacs - Lautrec learned to make do with simple cheap wine from a nearby shop. He drank more and worked less and less, and if earlier he made more than a hundred paintings a year, then in 1897 he painted only fifteen canvases. It seemed to friends that unrestrained drunkenness was destroying Lautrec as an artist. But he has not yet lost the ability to create masterpieces: these are portrait by Oscar Wilde 1896

Friends tried to distract him from alcohol addiction, were taken to England, Holland, Spain, but he, having had enough of old art, admiring the canvases of Brueghel and Cranach, Van Eyck and Memling, El Greco, Goya and Velasquez, returned home and - was taken to the former. Henri became capricious, intolerant, sometimes simply unbearable. Inexplicable outbursts of anger, stupid antics, unjustified violence ... His already poor health was undermined by alcoholism and syphilis, which Red Rose “awarded” him long ago.

Lautrec began to suffer from insomnia, as a result of which - against the backdrop of endless drunkenness - he developed frightening hallucinations and delusions of persecution. His behavior became more and more inadequate, he was increasingly subjected to bouts of insanity. In the summer of 1897 he fired a revolver at imaginary spiders, in the autumn of 1898 it seemed to him that the police were chasing him on the street, and he hid from them with friends.

In 1899, "with a terrible attack of delirium tremens," Lautrec's mother placed Lautrec in the insane clinic of Dr. Semelen in Neuilly. Coming out of there after several months of treatment, he struggled to work, but something seemed to break in him.

In mid-April, Lautrec returned to Paris. Friends, seeing Henri, were shocked. “How has he changed! they said. Only a shadow remained of him! Lautrec barely moved, moving his legs with difficulty. It was clear that he was forcing himself to live. But sometimes it seemed that faith in the future again finds hope in him. He was especially pleased with the news that several of his paintings were sold at an auction in Drouot, and for a lot of money. Inspired by this event, Henri again felt a strong urge to draw. But - the last works seemed not to be his ... In three months, Lautrec sorted out everything that had gathered in his workshop over the years of work, finished some canvases, affixed his signatures on what seemed to him a success ... Before leaving - he was going to spend that summer in Arashon and Tossa, places familiar to him from childhood, on the seashore - Henri brought perfect order to the workshop, as if he knew that he was not destined to return there again.

At the Orleans Station, he was seen off by old friends. Both they and Lautrec himself understood that this was probably their last meeting.

The sea air could not cure Henri. Doctors accompanied him with a statement that he had consumption, and in mid-August, Lautrec had a stroke. He lost weight, became deaf, moved with difficulty due to developing paralysis. Arriving to the seriously ill Lautrec, Countess Adele transported her son to the family castle in Malrome. In this mansion, surrounded by the care and love of his mother, Henri seemed to have returned to the vast world of childhood, joys, and hopes. He even tried to start drawing again, but his fingers no longer obeyed the call of his heart and could not hold the brush. Over time, paralysis fettered his entire unfortunate body, Lautrec could not even eat himself. There was always someone at his bedside: friends, mother or old nanny. The father, Count Alphonse, also visited, and did not recognize the artist in his son. When he entered the room Henri 1901

Toulouse-Lautrec's natural growing pains - "hopeless entanglement in narcissism" successfully developed into a strong confidence in his success on the foundation of the draftsman's talent. He was not afraid of any topic, any order, any size and any speed. Matisse's expression and kinematics of the body turned out to be the main arguments in the artist's paintings. The audacity of genetic talents was confirmed by the artistic discoveries that followed one after another of more and more new possibilities for shocking the public, which was easier and more successful to organize on leading the public to a dead end and on vulgarities. The French made vice a treat. Elite, who bought creativity, took the artistic riotous bohemia for the norm of playfulness, asserting the status of real life. Lautrec, on the other hand, expresses the organic freedom of the pose, bringing its expressiveness to shocking. The curtain fell. Life Henri de Toulouse - Lautrec - Montfat broke off on the morning of September 9, 1901 at the age of thirty-seven, like Van Gogh. He was buried near Malrome in the cemetery of Saint - Andre - du Bois. Later, the Countess ordered that the remains of her son be transferred to Werdle.

Gradually, the works of Toulouse-Lautrec began to acquire the largest museums in the world - Toulouse-Lautrec became a classic. Despite this, Count Alphonse was still unwilling to admit that his son was a talented artist. He wrote to Henri's childhood friend, Maurice Joyayan, who was busy creating a house - the Lautrec Museum in Albi: "Just because the artist is no longer alive - even if it is my son - I cannot admire his clumsy work." And only in his suicide letter, in December 1912, the count confessed to Maurice: "You believed more in his talent than I did, and you were right ...".

The injury that closed Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec's path to high society was the impetus for his creative take-off.

Count with short legs

Henri Toulouse-Lautrec was born in 1864 into an aristocratic family. His parents separated after death younger son when the future artist was four years old. After the divorce of his parents, Henri lived on his mother's estate near Narbonne, where he studied horseback riding, Latin and Greek.

Toulouse-Lautrec belonged to ancient family France. These were educated people who were interested in the politics and culture of their country. Thanks to family passions, the little count had an interest in art very early. The boy had no less love for horses and dogs, already with early years He was engaged in horseback riding and, together with his father, took part in dog and falconry hunting.

His father wanted to raise an athlete from Henri, so he often took him to the races, and also took his son to the studio of his friend, the deaf artist René Prensto, who created brilliant portraits of horses and dogs in motion. Father and son took lessons from this renowned artist together.

At the age of 13, Henri got up from a low chair unsuccessfully and broke the femoral neck of his left leg. A year and a half later, he fell into a ravine and received a fracture of the femoral neck of his right leg. His legs stopped growing, remaining about 70 centimeters long throughout the life of the artist, while the body continued to develop.

Some researchers believe that the bones slowly grew together and the growth of the limbs stopped due to heredity - Anri's grandmothers were sisters to each other.

By the age of 20, he looked very disproportionate: a large head and body on the thin legs of a child. With a very low growth of 152 centimeters, the young man courageously endured his illness, compensating for it with an amazing sense of humor, self-irony and education.

Toulouse-Lautrec said that if it were not for the injury, he would be happy to become a surgeon or an athlete. A rowing machine was installed in his studio, on which he liked to exercise. The artist told his friends that if his legs were longer, he would not paint.

Henri's family could hardly come to terms with his son's illness: the defect deprived him of the opportunity to attend balls, go hunting, and engage in military affairs. Physical unattractiveness reduced the chances of finding a mate and procreating. Henri's father, Count Alphonse, lost all interest in him after the injury.

But thanks to his father, who loved entertainment, Lautrec attended fairs and the circus from an early age. Subsequently, the theme of the circus and entertainment venues became the main theme in the artist's work.

All hopes were pinned on Henri in the family, but he could not fulfill them. At the age of 18, the young count, trying to prove to his father that his life was not over, went to Paris. Throughout his subsequent life, relations with his father were strained: Count Alphonse did not want his son to dishonor the family by putting his signature on the paintings.

Windmill painter of Montmartre

The direction in which Henri de Toulez-Lautrec worked is known in art as post-impressionism, which gave rise to modernism or art nouveau.

During the treatment of fractures, Henri drew a lot, devoting much more time to this than school subjects. His mother, Countess Adele, desperately sought to cure her son, drove to resorts, hired the best doctors, but no one was able to help.

At first, he painted in an impressionistic manner: he was admired by Edgar Degas, Paul Cezanne, in addition, Japanese engravings served as a source of inspiration. In 1882, after moving to Paris, Lautrec visited the studios of academic painters for several years, but the classical accuracy of their paintings was alien to him.

In 1885 he settled in Montmartre, a semi-rural suburb with windmills around which cabarets began to open, including the legendary Moulin Rouge.

The family was horrified by the son's decision to open his studio in the center of the district, which was beginning to gain fame as a bohemian haven. Soon, at the insistence of his father, he took a pseudonym for himself and began to sign his works with an anagram of the surname "Treklo".

It was Montmartre that became the main source of inspiration for the young painter.

Henri moved away from communication with people of his circle, more and more surrendering to a new life: he moved into the world of Parisian bohemia and "half-light", where he found the opportunity to exist without arousing close curiosity. It was here that the artist received powerful creative impulses.

In the work of Lautrec, his own own style- a little grotesque, deliberately decorative. It is no coincidence that he became one of the pioneers of the art of lithography (printed poster).

In 1888 and 1890, Lautrec took part in the exhibitions of the Brussels Group of Twenty and received the highest reviews from the idol of his youth, Edgar Degas. Together with Lautrec, famous french artists- Renoir, Signac, Cezanne and Van Gogh. Precisely the 90s XIX years century became the time of the brilliant dawn of the art of the artist Toulouse-Lautrec.

The creative life of Toulouse-Lautrec lasted less than two decades - he died at 37 years old. But his legacy is considered one of the richest: 737 paintings, 275 watercolors, 363 prints and posters, 5084 drawings, as well as studies, sketches, ceramics and stained glass.

Despite the lifetime hostility of criticism towards the artist, a few years after his death, a real vocation came to him. He inspired many young artists, including Picasso. Today, the work of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec still attracts artists and art lovers, and prices for his work continue to skyrocket.

Only next to the clowns, acrobats, dancers and prostitutes Henri de Toulouse - Lautrec felt at home. Contemporaries did not accept the work of the artist. Having a natural talent and not being constrained by means, Toulouse-Lautrec could receive a brilliant art education. However, having mastered the basics of painting from modern masters, he began to develop his own, innovative aesthetics, far from academicism. Refusal of naturalism and detail (no folds on clothes, carefully traced hairs), emphasized, close to caricature, grotesque manner of rendering facial features and plasticity of characters, an abundance of movement and vivid emotions - these are the main characteristics of his style.

Childhood is considered to be the happiest time in a person's life. But this happiness was overshadowed by drama or even tragedy for Henri. Born with poor health, he was often ill, grew slowly, and until the age of five his fontanel did not overgrow. The countess was worried about her boy and primarily blamed herself for his illnesses: after all, her husband was her cousin, and children in related marriages are often born unhealthy. When her second son, Richard, who was born two and a half years after Henri, died at the age of eleven months, Adele finally established herself in the idea that her marriage was a mistake. And it's not just about the illnesses of children - a pious woman gave her husband a lot, but over time, their family life began to be filled with misunderstanding, bitterness and disunity. For a long time, Adele tried to put up with the count's rudeness and betrayal, with his quirks and whims, but in August 1868 there was a final break - she stopped considering Alphonse her husband. In a letter to her sister, she said that now she intended to treat him only as a cousin. However, they still portrayed spouses and were polite to each other in public - after all, they had a son, and in addition, it was necessary to observe the rules of decency accepted in society. But since then, all her attention, all her love has been given to Henri.

Count Alphonse loved aristocratic entertainment - hunting, horseback riding, horse racing - and passed on to his son a love of horses and dogs.

1881. Oil on wood

1881. Oil on canvas

The count was also interested in art and often came with his young son to the workshop of his friend, the artist Rene Prensto, with whom Henri soon became friends. Prensto was not only an animal painter, he was a dexterous rider, a lover of dog hunting and racing.

In Paris, where the Lautrec family moved in 1872, Henri is determined to the Lyceum. It grows very slowly; the smallest among peers, receives the nickname "Kid". The margins of his notebooks filled with drawings much faster than the pages with letters and numbers.

His limbs stopped growing altogether, only his head and body became disproportionately huge in relation to his short legs and arms.

The figure on "children's legs" with "children's hands" looked very ridiculous. A charming child turned into a real freak. Henri tried to look as little as possible in the mirror - after all, apart from large, burning - black eyes, there was nothing attractive in his appearance left. The nose became thick, the protruding lower lip hung over the sloping chin, the short hands grew disproportionately huge. Yes, and the words that the deformed mouth uttered were distorted by a lisp, the sounds jumped one on top of the other, he swallowed the syllables and, speaking, spattered with saliva. Such tongue-tiedness, coupled with the existing defect in the musculoskeletal system, did not at all contribute to the development of Henri's spiritual harmony. Fearing the ridicule of others, Lautrec he learned to make fun of himself and his own ugly body, without waiting for others to start making fun of and mocking him. Such a technique of self-defense was used by this amazing and courageous person, and this technique worked. When people first met Lautrec, they laughed not at him, but at his witticisms, and when they got to know Henri better, they certainly fell under his charm.

Henri's mother fully shared her son's interests and admired him, but his father, Count Alphonse, did not at all like what the heir to the family did.

Oil on cardboard

1880 - 1890. Oil on canvas

Canvas, oil

In 1886, Lautrec met Van Gogh in the workshop of Cormon, painted his portrait in the manner of a new friend.

Gradually, Montmartre invents something new, never ceasing to amaze. New establishments are emerging. In 1889, Joseph Oller announced the opening of the Moulin Rouge cabaret.

In January 1891, before the start of the new season, Oller ordered Toulouse-Lautrec a poster advertising the Moulin Rouge. Of course, it should have cabaret stars that attract attention - Valentin and La Goulue "in the midst of a sparkling quadrille."

The advertising posters, which came out at the end of September and were a great success, were pasted all over Paris. Fiacres (hired carriages) with posters glued on drove around the city. This poster is one of the classic works of French Post-Impressionism. In the center of the poster is La Goulue, depicted in profile and dancing in front of the audience. He glorified the Moulin Rouge, and even more - the artist.

Album « Yvette Guilbert"(sixteen lithographs) was published in 1894. The singer, and part-time model of Lautrec, treated him approvingly, but then her friends convinced her that she looked disgusting there and that the artist should have been punished by the offender in court for humiliated dignity and public insult.

However, numerous laudatory responses began to appear in the newspaper press, and Yvette had to come to terms with her merciless portrait painter. Perhaps now no one would remember that in Paris on Montmartre at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century such a singer sang - Yvette Guilbert, but history has preserved the memory of her thanks to him, a brilliant freak Henri Toulouse - Lautrec.

Gradually, the works of Toulouse-Lautrec were printed and sold throughout the country. The artist's works were exhibited at large exhibitions in France, Brussels and London. He became so famous that fakes under Lautrec began to appear on the markets, which meant success.

But fame did not change the artist's way of life in any way: he worked just as hard and had just as much fun, did not miss any costume balls, or premieres in theaters, or parties with his Montmartre friends. Lautrec lived as if he was afraid to miss something, not to be in time somewhere in this life - excitedly, feverishly, joyfully. "Life is Beautiful!" was one of his favorite exclamations. And only close friends knew what bitterness was hidden behind these actions and words. He also drank - a lot, but only very good and expensive drinks. He was convinced that high quality alcohol could not cause serious harm. Lautrec loved to mix different drinks, getting an unusual bouquet. He was the first in France to start making cocktails and got incredible pleasure from listening to the praise of his guests, who enthusiastically joined the new drinks. Who only then did not visit him, and all his guests knew that Lautrec was supposed to drink. His fellow students in the workshop of Cormon Anquetin and Bernard, and the young Van Gogh, who introduced him to Japanese art, and the insidious Valadon, the artist and model of Renoir, who seemed to be playing some kind of subtle game with Lautrec - either appeared in his life or disappeared ... 1888

Friends tried to distract him from alcohol addiction, took him to England, Holland, Spain, but he, having had enough of old art, admiring the canvases of Brueghel and Cranach, Van Eyck and Memling, El Greco, Goya and Velasquez, returned home and - set to the same. Henri became capricious, intolerant, sometimes simply unbearable. Inexplicable outbursts of anger, stupid antics, unjustified violence ... His already poor health was undermined by alcoholism and syphilis, which Red Rose “awarded” him long ago.

In 1899, "with a terrible attack of delirium tremens," Lautrec's mother placed Lautrec in the insane clinic of Dr. Semelen in Neuilly. Coming out of there after several months of treatment, he struggled to work, but something seemed to break in him.

At the Orleans Station, he was seen off by old friends. Both they and Lautrec himself understood that this was probably their last meeting.

Toulouse-Lautrec's natural growing pains - "hopeless entanglement in narcissism" successfully developed into a strong confidence in his success on the foundation of the draftsman's talent. He was not afraid of any topic, any order, any size and any speed. Matisse's expression and kinematics of the body turned out to be the main arguments in the artist's paintings. The audacity of genetic talents was confirmed by the artistic discoveries that followed one after another of more and more new possibilities for shocking the public, which was easier and more successful to organize on leading the public to a dead end and on vulgarities. The French made vice a treat. The high society, which bought creativity, took the artistic riotousness of Bohemia for the norm of playfulness, asserting the status of real life. Lautrec, on the other hand, expresses the organic freedom of the pose, bringing its expressiveness to shocking. The curtain fell. Life Henri de Toulouse - Lautrec - Montfat broke off on the morning of September 9, 1901 at the age of thirty-seven, like Van Gogh. He was buried near Malrome in the cemetery of Saint - Andre - du Bois. Later, the Countess ordered that the remains of her son be transferred to Werdle.

St. Petersburg State University of Culture and Arts

Faculty of World Culture

Department of Museology and Cultural Heritage

"Life and creation Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec"

Subject abstract

"Art of Europe of New and Modern Times"

5th year student

Shabakaeva A-M.Sh.

St. Petersburg

Introduction

Biography of the Artist

Creativity of the artist

Conclusion

Bibliography

Introduction

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was a contemporary artist in the fullest sense of the word. Interested in the demimonde, the life of Parisian cabarets and circuses, Montmartre cafés, painting portraits of dancers, artists, writers, he depicts the world with cruel justice. He understands joy, but pain is also close to him. He sees not only brilliance, but also poverty. The art of Toulouse-Lautrec is the art of improvisation, created by a few strokes of the brush, at the same time objective and deforming, but perfectly expressing the artist's vision and feelings. The work of Toulouse-Lautrec, which flourished in such a short period of time, is one of cornerstones contemporary art.

This monograph brings reproductions of Lautrec's works now in various European galleries and museums. The illustrations are accompanied short essay the life and work of the artist.

Biography of the Artist

Before telling the story of the artist from Montmartre, I would like to dwell briefly on some facts of his life, which is so often surrounded by a halo of tragic, but at the same time ambiguous glory. The turbulent life of a crippled man, a revolt against society, against himself, against his own suffering, against lawlessness, from which Toulouse-Lautrec tried to hide behind a careless smile and to whom he took revenge with an evil prickly irony! All this often obscures the true light of his work. The story of the sad life of the artist from Montmartre is still known more than his canvases depicting the life of Montmartre. Only in the 20s of our century, the works of Toulouse-Lautrec begin to buy European and American art galleries. The exception is French public meetings, where the situation was somewhat different, although fame did not come to the artist immediately in his homeland. Lautrec's first work, "Portrait of the Clown Sha-Yu-Kao" (1895), was sent to the Louvre in 1914 under Camon's will. At the same time, a gallery in Bremen buys his Girl in an Atelier (1888). However, soon after the First World War, museums are buying up the last paintings of the artist, appearing at auctions and in salons. Such is the fate of great artists. After all, Vincent van Gogh sold only one of his paintings during his lifetime.

The count's coat of arms with the inscription "Diex lo volt", a gilded crown over two lions and crosses - emblems of the ancient French family of Toulouse-Lautrec. The ancestors of Toulouse-Lautrec were among the first crusaders who entered Jerusalem in the 11th century. This did not prevent them from subsequently opposing the Pope and the King. Papal curses and excommunication are accompanied by confiscation of land.

But when the country needs courageous fighters, the Lautrecs are again called up for service. Francis I appointed one of the Lautrecs (Audet de Foix Lautrec, 1528) as his marshal. The latter dies near Naples. Perhaps from the hand of a murderer, perhaps from the plague, perhaps from both at once. The artist's father, Alphonse de Toulouse-Lautrec, a wonderful cavalryman and connoisseur of horses, a passionate hunter, a restless and rare guest at Albi Castle, was an eccentric person. Horse racing and falconry occupied him more than the fate of his own son. In addition, his marriage to Countess Adele Tapier de Seleyran was marked by indifference - the marriage of cousins, dictated by the desire to financially strengthen the impoverished Toulouse-Lautrec family and influenced not only the psyche and emotional world child, but also on his physical development. Parents later realized this and anxiously watched the fragile health of their only son.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was born on November 29, 1864 in the town of Albi in the castle du Boek. Albi currently houses one of the largest collections of his paintings, lithographs, drawings - famous museum Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Little Henri grows up under the care of his mother among his cousins and sisters. He grows up in a family where drawing is often an evening leisure activity. It is known that the father and mother of Toulouse-Lautrec were wonderful draftsmen. Especially the father. The mother devotes all her time to her son (when Henri was three years old, his brother was born, who soon died, however).

In 1873 the whole family moved to Paris, where Henri entered the Fountain Lyceum. The boy is doing well. At the Lyceum, he meets two of his future friends, whose names should be mentioned. Louis Pascal and Maurice Joyan, later a well-known art dealer who replaced Theo van Gogh at the Goupil firm. Lautrec exhibits twice at Joyan's. The third exhibition was posthumous. Joyan writes the first large two-volume monograph on Toulouse-Lautrec with the most complete bibliography of his works so far (1926-27). For the first time, he cites in it information that Lautrec received the first prizes in Latin, French grammar and English at the Lyceum. From English, Lautrec subsequently translates a book about falcons. However, already in 1875, Lautrec showed the first signs of frequent illnesses and future nervous attacks. He is forced to interrupt his studies at the Lyceum. Private teachers supervise his studies under the supervision of his mother. The father, however, still continues to take his son hunting with him, teaches him to ride a horse in the hope of raising a worthy successor to a noble family. Soon, however, an accident occurs that changes the course of Lautrec's entire subsequent life (just like his father's attitude towards him). On May 30, 1878, Henri slipped on the floor in the castle du Boek and broke his left leg. For a long time he lies in plaster. The bone heals slowly. Not yet fully recovered from his illness, during a walk in front of his mother, this time he breaks his right leg a second time. Everything repeats again. Parents invite the best doctors. Prolonged inactivity. The growth of the bones of the lower body stops. The upper part develops, however, normally. Henri's gait becomes unsteady, and he gradually begins to realize that he has become a cripple. Loneliness, days without friends, days when he reproaches his mother for giving birth to him, completely changed the character, mood and thoughts of the boy! His only entertainment at this time is drawing. He paints literally everything. In the open air and in the room, figurative compositions and portraits. Gradually, entertainment becomes a joy, and then just a necessity: to be able to do more, to learn everything! At the same time, Lautrec is trying to make the first illustrations for the story "Cocotte", written by his young friend Etienne Devisme (1879). Under one of the letters he signed " future artist A. de T. L. "(X, 1881).

Several hundred drawings of this period (stored in Albi) testify to the perseverance and perseverance of a sick person who is looking for a way out of loneliness and despair. He tries to prove to himself that with his own hands he can do everything, even what others cannot do. Soon he will pass his exams for high school. A document has come down to us, testifying to the mood of the "future artist". Here is what Toulouse-Lautrec writes in a letter that he sends to a friend on November 22, 1881: “Being drawn into the whirlpool of final exams (this time I passed them successfully), I forgot my friends, painting and everything that deserves attention on this earth, in name of dictionaries and grammarians. The Toulouse Board of Examiners recognized me as prepared, despite the stupidity of my answers. I quoted Lucan - although these quotes never existed. And the professor, with self-respect, received me with open arms. Finally, all this is mine.

My letter will seem to you, apparently, trifling, but it is the result of mental depression after the exams. Let's hope the next letter will be better..."

The letter was written at a time when Henri was already visiting the studio of the deaf-mute artist Rene Prensto, the author of military, cavalry and hunting scenes, who wrote mainly for noble and wealthy bourgeois salons. Prensto introduced the young Lautrec to the basics of painting technique, taught him to see movement. Very soon he realized how gifted his student was. The young man without much difficulty learned to imitate not only his teacher, but also the more recognized "magnitudes" of the time, such as Lewis Brown. Prensto often brings Henri to the circus, teaches him to record the movements of horses during training. Here, a world opens before Lautrec, to which the artist will subsequently invariably return. The speed of sketching, the technique of a short brush stroke - this is how Toulouse-Lautrec comes to the studio of Leon Bonn in 1882. However, the cold academicism of the latter does not attract Lautrec, and he soon goes to the studio of Fernand Piestre (known under the pseudonym Cormon) - 1883. Lautrec works with sitters . He puts his own work and the help of friends above the advice of a teacher. In 1884 he wrote a parody of Puvis de Chavannes painting "Le Bois Sacre". He draws himself in the back at the head of a procession of men heading for an ancient grove. His small, ugly figure in checkered pants seems ridiculous in comparison with a group of tall, solemnly walking men. This is the second painting in which Lautrec depicts himself. The first - "Self-portrait in front of a mirror" - was written in 1880. The third attempt to write a self-portrait dates back to 1885. Lautrec, again, writes himself in the back, sitting on a stool and drawing. Already a mature artist, Toulouse-Lautrec once again returned to his image in a painting depicting the famous Parisian cafe-chantant Moulin Rouge. In the atelier of Cormont, Toulouse-Lautrec befriends Louis Anquetin, Emile Bernard, Grenier, François Gozy and Henri Rachou. At Cormon, Toulouse-Lautrec first meets Van Gogh (1886), which at first glance attracted the attention of the artist. Eleven years younger, he enters into friendship with Vincent, a great friendship born of their great talent. In 1885, Lautrec leaves the Pere Hotel, where he had previously lived with his mother, and begins independent life artist. At first, he rents an atelier on Rue Fontaine, not far from Montmartre - with the Grenier spouses, but soon moves to Rue Turlac, in the very center of Montmartre.

Let us interrupt, however, for a while the story of the artist's life and return to his paintings. The first group of reproductions (1-vi) includes works painted by the artist in oils between 1879 and 1887. This is the period of the first searches, the formation of the creative manner of Lautrec. "Artilleryman saddling a horse" (1879). Against the silver-blue background of a small picture, Toulouse-Lautrec models space with obscure warm spots. Liquid paint, strict impasto lines and a sharply breaking pattern are not yet balanced. A number of paintings from this period, kept in Albi, testify to the artist's desire to find harmony between color and pattern (mostly in blue). For example, a portrait of the artist's father on a horse with a falcon in his left hand (1881). The 17-year-old artist is already achieving noticeable results in it. The same should be said about the paintings "Young Ruthy" and "Worker" (both in 1882). From the predominant blue tones of the portrait to the more expressive brilliance of the "Worker" leads the way to the artistic synthesis of the work that Lautrec is looking for. At the same time, a portrait of Emile Bernard (1885) was painted, a portrait of the future friend of Van Gogh and Gauguin, painted with almost Renoir virtuosity, testifying to the attention with which Toulouse-Lautrec studied the Impressionists. But not their landscapes! He did not recognize them even later (just like Corot). Painter human images did not understand and ironically over the tranquility of the landscapes. He could not write what he said had no effect. The hint of landscape was only a background in his paintings of the first period. From subsequent works of Lautrec, except for portraits painted in the garden of Mr. Forest (1889-1891), the landscape completely disappears.

"Dancer in the theater dressing room" (1885) - one of the first works that testify to the nascent love of Lautrec for Edgar Degas - for the world that the artist captured on his canvases. Among the first noteworthy portraits should be called "Portrait of a Mother in the Salon of Malarome" (1887). The artist's mother, often depicted in his early works(four portraits of her 1882-1887 are known), sits in a calm pose, full of nobility and at the same time a certain provinciality. One of those portraits of a thin man in which he did not look for more than what he could see; the combination of cold and warm tones creates space. The artist signs under the picture "Treklo", apparently in order not to tarnish the glorious noble name kind. Tracing in the early works of Lautrec the influence of his teachers and, above all, of course, Prensto, we must dwell on his drawings, on sketches of horses, on the painting "Return from hunting in Albi" (1883).

However, let us return again to the life of the artist, which unfolds in the very heart of Paris - in Montmartre. Montmartre gradually becomes the center artistic life, a place where bohemia lives, "half light", people with a broken life and unfulfilled dreams. Artists, poets, writers, musicians and critics meet in a small space on Boulevard Rochechouart. Here, in 1881, Rudolf Saly founded the famous cabaret Chas-Noir. Bruant's "Mirliton" would be born here somewhat later. New names, new ideas will be born and die here. Among the regular guests of Châs-Noir we find Victor Hugo, Zola, the Goncourt brothers, Anatole France. The name of the 17-year-old Toulouse-Lautrec is inextricably linked with him. After the first successes of the cabaret, Saly began to publish, under the editorship of Emile Goudeau, the magazine Le Chas-Noir (the name was borrowed from the famous short story by Edgar Allan Poe). Among the staff of the magazine appear Barbe D Aurevilli, Alphonse Daudet, Huysmans, Guy de Maupassant, from the musicians Wagner, Gounod, Massenet. Artists of different generations and views participate in its design. The magazine unusually accurately reflects the atmosphere of the emerging Montmartre. Cabarets and magazines, among which "Le Chas-Noir" sets the tone, are persistently looking for "their" illustrators. At this time, the names of Forain, Steinlen, and later Lautrec are born. Some magazines were soon forgotten. Some, however, witnessed the birth of great artists and contributed to the development of French painting. Theaters are born. Paul Faure, Mallarme, Verhaern write their works for them. Young talented artists try their hand on the stages. New exhibitions are being organized. Cabarets are looking for famous dancers and singers. Again, the circus comes to life (in one of them - the Fernando circus - four artists work simultaneously: Degas, Renoir, Seurat and Toulouse-Lautrec). There is a growing interest in sports, in cycling. They are as popular as horse races have been recently. It's not just entertainment. This is a kind of life style, from which new works, new art, a new discovery of artists grow. Degas dedicates his work to this life. Manet and Renoir point the way. In Montmartre, Toulouse-Lautrec finds new friends. Zandomeneghi introduces him to the model Marie-Clementine Valadon, a former actress, who left the stage at the age of 15 after an injury and became the model of Puvis de Chavannes and Renoir. The twenty-year-old girl became the first mistress of Toulouse-Lautrec. Then Toulouse-Lautrec did not yet know that his girlfriend (later she would change her name and become known as Suzanne) was painting, and her son Maurice Utrillo would be able, like no one before him, to convey the beauty and poetry of the streets of Montmartre in his canvases. At this time, the mother of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec does not yet know what lifestyle her son leads.

Toulouse-Lautrec seems to feel that his talent is not yet ripe for the embodiment of those topics in which his artistic genius is most fully expressed. He accumulates observations, studies faces, paints portraits of friends and models. Most often in the nearby Forest Garden in bright sunlight. But sometimes in the studio, at a table in a cafe. The portrait of Vincent van Gogh (1887), written in the cafe Le Tamburin, allegedly owned by an Italian woman, known from the paintings of Corot, dates back to this time. A confident drawing conveys the most characteristic features of the face, the sharp contour of the profile is reflected from the background, dissected by horizontal and vertical lines. There is an illusion of space.

A similar decision of the background will often be repeated in the further works of Lautrec. Wallpaper, paintings, doors, frames, mosaics of restaurant windows are the background of most of his portraits and large figure compositions.

The second period of Lautrec's work (1888-89), presented in reproductions VII-XVI, is the period of formation of the artist's own vision. The first work, marked by the seal of maturity and the uniqueness of this vision, is a portrait of Helen V. in the studio (1888). Portrait painted in long quick strokes and elastic brush. The interweaving of lines, liquid dry paints emphasize the drawing and reveal the overall color concept of the work. The harmony of cold yellow and blue tones, characteristic of the mature canvases of the artist. In a manner reminiscent of the "Portrait of Emile Bernard", a portrait of the physically and morally crippled "Redhead in a White Jacket" (1888) was painted. A sad image of Lotrekov's life! What can not be read in this psychologically in-depth portrait, which opens a gallery of female and male portraits of the artist, the skill and psychological depth of which, perhaps, have no equal. Somewhat apart in the work of this period is the painting "In the circus Fernando - horsewoman" (1888). In a period when Lautrec still paints mostly portraits, he only occasionally and accidentally tries his hand at large multi-figured canvases, while depicting mostly dance scenes. Only in 1899 did he begin to systematically and persistently work on a cycle of drawings from the life of the arena, which he called "The Circus". The painting of 1888, with its planar decorative composition, is somewhat reminiscent of Japanese engravings. The peculiarity of the vision again, however, testifies to the influence of Edgar Degas.

Creativity of the artist

The life and work of Toulouse-Lautrec is dedicated a large number of monographs. And yet, most of them underestimate one extremely important part of his work. Famous names of dancers and singers often overshadow the large gallery of Lautrec's male portraits, representing an organic line in the development of his talent. After all, it is no coincidence that male portraits stand at the beginning and at the end of it. creative way(the last portraits of André Rivoire, Octave Raquin and a large unfinished portrait of M. Viot in admiral's uniform).

Among the first truly "Lautrec" male portraits, one should mention the portrait of the artist Samary (1889), the brother of Jeanne Samary, known from one of Renoir's paintings. Lautrec portrays the artist in a somewhat caricatured form in a theatrical pose (apparently in a comic role). Although the picture is not yet balanced in terms of composition and color, it already in many ways already allows us to judge the skill of the mature Lautrec. Transmitting facial expression, movement and pose, the artist strives for the utmost conciseness. Such searches are, of course, not accidental or isolated in French painting (we can at least recall Edouard Manet, the Impressionists, so as not to go too far). The immediacy, "informality" of the captured moment gives Lautrec's images some special vitality, which, perhaps, in comparison with the previous recognized canons of portraiture, seems disrespectful to the lofty tasks of art. However, the vicious circle of academicism had already been broken through to Toulouse-Lautrec.

He only widened the gap. Asserting his view of things and people - often ruthless, cruel and never flattering, Lautrec does not look for a face, he studies it and thereby opens the path that Picasso, Derain, Vlaminck, and partly Ed will follow him. Munch. In particular, his full-length portrait of a man (1901) testifies to the influence of Lautrec. The influence of Lautrec could easily be detected in the works of a number of German Expressionists, which, however, too often absolutized the irony of Lautrec, his cruel grimace, losing the integrity of the artist's perception, violating the harmony of his work.

In 1889, the famous Moscow "Portrait of a Woman at the Window" was painted, which is a preparatory work for the painting "At the Moulin de la Galette", the first of the series famous paintings artist dedicated to the life of Montmartre cafes and chantans. If we could hang side by side the paintings of the same name by Renoir (1876) and finally Picasso (1900), we would find extreme differences in the embodiment of one theme. different artists. Renoir saw in the "Moulin de la Galette" a society of well-dressed men and women, in top hats and elegant toilets. Picasso, perhaps, is an even more elegant and brilliant world. And Lautrec? - Ordinary people, the poor, ordinary residents of small houses in Montmartre. Without gloves and boas. And if the cylinder, then rather as a contrast, emphasizing poverty, as a memory of " past life". Three foreground figures (coincidentally, Renoir and Picasso have the same number) indicate who Lautrec saw at the Moulin de la Galette. We have already said that this is the first of a series of paintings dedicated to the life of Montmartre cafes. True, Toulouse is Lautrec had previously tried to paint pictures from the life of Montmartre at night (1886, 1888), but they remained, as a rule, unfinished. "Moulin de la Galette" - the first successful attempt to embody the world of artificial lighting, cheap perfumery, crowds of human figures and faces, famous dancers and dancers, the world of their refined poses and gestures.One more circumstance should be noted: "Moulin de la Galette" - the first and last picture from the life of the Parisian chantants, in which Toulouse-Lautrec did not portray his friends, who are invariably present in all his subsequent works. This is the first and last canvas that does not depict famous dancers, who are usually the compositional "focus" of his paintings. In the "Moulin de la Galette" simple, unknown inhabitants of Montmartre are dancing.

However, our story about the works of the artist led us to places where we have not yet reached in our story about his life. Disappointed in the visitors of Sha-Noir, whose subject of ridicule was often himself, Lautrec wanders the night streets of Montmartre, visits the Moulin de la Galette cafe, draws in the circus, meets with famous singer Aristide Bruant at the cabaret Le Mirliton, paints dancers and friends, exhibits with the Society of the Twenty in Brussels (1888), exhibits his works for the first time in Paris at the Salon des Indépendants (1889). A tireless artist And a drinking buddy, unhappy and crippled by life, he seems to be striving to prove to himself that he is the same as others, that the same joys and entertainments are available to him, that he can do everything. Bruant becomes his friend, at the Moulin Rouge he meets La Goulue, the first of the stars that shone brightly on his canvases. The world of cabaret, dance and singing captivates him with its rhythm, its sparkling colors. He paints a few more portraits, and with his cousin Tapier de Seleyran visits the operating room of the famous Parisian surgeon Dr. Pean, where he makes dozens of sketches to later use them for two portraits of the famous doctor and a large canvas from the operating room (1891).

In January 1890, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec leaves with Signac for Brussels to attend the opening of the exhibition of the Society of the Twenty. Two years ago, Lautrec advised Van Gogh to leave for Arles. In Brussels, he first sees the paintings painted there by Van Gogh. Lautrec is amazed by their colors and the power of sound. It is not surprising, therefore, that at one of the solemn banquets it comes to a sharp quarrel, when some "genuinely academic artist" Henri de Groux calls Van Gogh a charlatan. Toulouse-Lautrec and Signac are ready for a duel to defend the name and honor of Vincent. It is only with difficulty that the organizers of the banquet manage to settle the dispute and calm the disputants.

The last time both artists met in Paris in 1890 in the studio of Lautrec. Van Gogh looks at Lautrec's painting Mademoiselle Dio at the Piano (1890) for a long time. In a letter to his brother Theo, he writes: "The picture of Lautrec - a portrait of a musician - is wonderful. She delighted me."

The two friends met for the last time at the picture, which, by the technique of writing, by the consistent use of light spots, somewhat "drops out" of Lautrec's work, but which is extremely typical of him in the interpretation of the image painted in profile.

Prior to this, Toulouse-Lautrec was almost unknown as an artist. Only friends and neighbors saw his paintings. At the exhibitions, they remained almost unnoticed. Maurice Joyan, who took the place of Theo van Gogh in the gallery to Goupil (1890), finds the paintings of his fellow student in a warehouse among the paintings of the Impressionists, Gauguin, Rafaelli, Odilon Redon - artists whose works at that time had not yet found their buyers. Joyan, however, understands how talented Lautrec is. They get closer again, and Joyan becomes one of the most persistent propagandists of Toulouse-Lautrec's work. The artist at this time can be found almost daily in the Moulin Rouge cafe. Here he always has his own table booked, at which he sits by himself, sometimes with friends, but always with a pencil or a brush. Dozens of paintings depicting the life of a night cafeteria, dozens of portraits of famous singers, actresses, dancers, dancers are born from an endless number of sketches, sketches, drawings. In 1890, the director of the Moulin Rouge, Oller, ordered and bought from Lautrec a large canvas, "Dance at the Moulin Rouge." La Goulue dances with Valentine le Desosse, in the background among the audience we recognize Jeanne Avril, the second director of the Zidler cafe, the photographer Sesco, the artist Gozi and the artist's faithful guide to Montmartre at night - Mr. Guibert. Their faces, just like Tapie de Seleyran, we will see more than once in the artist’s further paintings. The work, striking in its color movement, fidelity of gestures and general atmosphere, has been preserved only in fragments. The sides of the painting were cut off, as it did not fit in its size in the place that was intended for it in the Moulin Rouge.

The names we have named do not exhaust the entire circle of acquaintances of Toulouse-Lautrec. Lautrec was familiar with many writers, theatergoers, just like with many artists in Paris. Everyone admired his remarkable mind and powers of observation. The latter even sometimes more than his works. In 1889, Claude Monet organized a fundraiser to buy Manet's Olympia to be donated to the Louvre. (At the same time, he wanted to help Madame Manet, who lived after the death of her husband in very difficult material conditions.) 20,000 francs were collected. Among the signatories, we find the names of Braquemont, Burty, Carolus-Durand, Degas, Durand-Ruel, Duret, Fantin-Latour, Mallarmé, Pissarro, Antonin Proust, Puvis de Chavannes, Raffaelli, Renoir, Rodin and Toulouse-Lautrec. Emile Zola refused.

The state should have long ago, in his opinion, bought the painting, and not accepted it as a gift. However, the works of Toulouse-Lautrec will later suffer the same fate.

In 1890, Lautrec was included in the jury of the Salon des Indépendants. Customs officer Rousseau sends two of his paintings to the exhibition. One of them is the famous self-portrait, which is currently in the Prague National Gallery. Speaking against almost all members of the jury, Lautrec defends the works of Rousseau, for the first time pointing out their artistic features, which determine the unique originality of the poetic talent of the "Sunday artist" Rousseau.

Cheret's successful poster, inviting visitors to the Moulin Rouge, has fulfilled its role. After a few years, a new poster is needed. In 1891, Toulouse-Lautrec received this order. The poster is preceded by many drawings, watercolors, sketches. In Levi's typographic workshop, Pierre Bonnard initiates Toulouse-Lautrec into the secrets of color lithography. Within one night, Toulouse-Lautrec becomes famous. His name, signed on a large poster, is known to hundreds of Parisians. A bold artistic decision attracts attention at first sight. The gray silhouette of the dancer in the foreground, the white and pink spiral of the dancer, the black wall of the audience under the yellow lamps surprises with the invention and dissection of space. A clear drawn outline gives the figures monumentality.

Lautrec's name in critical literature is often associated with Japanese engravings. In this regard, it is his posters that should be named (cf. also the painting "In the Fernando Circus"). Struck by the result and delighted with the new technique, Toulouse-Lautrec draws 31 posters in a short period of time, which are perhaps the first modern posters in general.

Hundreds of posters on the streets of Paris are lit up with the red inscription Moulin Rouge. Unfortunately they are too big. Even the main name is repeated three times on them. Discouraged ministers posting posters cut off the edges. The collectors, who soon went to rescue the last lithographs, often removed posters of severed heads from the fence. Few of the collections today have lithographs preserved in their original form.

creativity artist portrait lautrec

But before we talk about a series of paintings dedicated to the life of the Moulin Rouge, let's name a small portrait of Henri Dio (1891), one of the members of a musical family with whom he was closely acquainted and which Degas painted more than once. Lautrec visits the Dio family, studies the works of the famous artist stored in her. More than once he brings friends here to show them this "pearl of painting". In addition to the portrait of Mademoiselle Dio, the piano has portraits of both musician brothers. Written in somewhat heavy strokes, however, they noticeably lose in comparison with the works of Degas and with the best portraits of Lautrec himself. Somewhat unexpected among the paintings of this period is the sketch "In the new circus. Five shirt-fronts" (1891), perhaps originally conceived as a preparatory work for a large poster. A transitional work is also a portrait of Guibert (painting "In a cafe" 1891), written with amazing truthfulness. Documentary photographs have survived in which Guibert is captured in the same poses and under the same lighting. They were made after the completion of work on the portrait to establish the external similarity. Lautrec with amazing speed was able to capture the pose and appearance.

"Moulin Rouge" was the first victory, followed by more. Probably they were best years in the life of Lautrec. The heyday of his work begins (1892-97, reproductions XVII-XXXVII). A short swift stroke, a long line of drawing, a rich color harmony, small color planes in unique combinations, his Greek "cold light" (Pierre Mac Orlan), a penetrating look, a sense of movement, a laconicism of images that recreate the artificial and false atmosphere of the end of the century. In these paintings, Lautrec appears before us as a caustic and at the same time a curious observer, a witness of entertainment and passions, a night guest of restaurants, always thirsting for life and wine, a connoisseur of the "bottom", its brilliance, but also its poverty and suffering. An artist depicting the life of places of entertainment and people, a life that begins at sunset and ends with its first rays penetrating the tired streets of Montmartre. In the painting "At the Moulin Rouge" (1892), he depicts himself. His little figurine is lost next to his cousin Tapie de Celeirand. The oblique composition emphasizes the space. Nearby are La Goulue, Cescaut, Guibert and the poet Edouard Dujardin. Compositionally, Lautrec is still influenced by Degas, his favorite artist, but his unique individuality is already felt in color and in his view of the world. Lautrec is fascinated by those works by Degas, in which formal perfection is combined with a deep inner vision of the image. In other words, Lautrec learns from Absinthe rather than from the artist's famous dancers. And this testifies to how truly Toulouse-Lautrec felt his abilities, the nature of his talent - ironic, cynical, but always able to convey the true appearance of people in which the artist rarely made mistakes.

Stars are born in his paintings. Some of them are outraged by their portraits. However, the star of Lautrec's talent can no longer be overshadowed. The noble, somewhat pale dancer Jeanne Avril, the tenacious and sensual La Goulue, the singer Yvette Guilbert etched themselves in Lautrec's memory and slowly pass through the halls of chantants on his canvases. These are not only portraits of dancers and dancers, this is an image of the time, the image of the era of the "end of the century". Lautrec became an artist of the cosmopolitan Montmartre. Montmartre, which is recognized as the legislator of entertainment, entertainment, luxury throughout the world. Lautrec captured his image and spirit, the spirit of the decay of the era, manifested in the circus and at the velodrome, at the races and in cafes, in chantans, bars and brothels. He preserved for us and monumentalized the outgoing artificial world of the end of the century - its servants and its customers (V.V. Shtekh). Paintings dedicated to the Moulin Rouge are among the most famous works of the artist. In them he reached artistic maturity. "Moulin Rouge, preparations for a quadrille", "La Goulue entering the Moulin Rouge", "Jeanne Avril dancing" or "Jeanne Avril leaving the Moulin Rouge" (all 1892) are rightfully the pride of the largest art galleries in the world. These paintings also include the canvas "At the Moulin Rouge. Two Dancers" (1892), located in the Prague National Gallery. (The merits of this painting have been rated at big exhibition works of Toulouse-Lautrec, organized in Paris in 1932 in the Marsan pavilion.)

In 1893, Toulouse-Lautrec is working on his first large cycle of tone lithographs, which he called "Cafeconcert". Among the 22 lithographs included in the album published jointly with A.G. Ibel, II portraits belong to Lautrec. Jeanne Avril, Yvette Guilbert, Aristide Bruant, Codier and others, actors, actresses, dancers pass in front of us in the light of night cafes and cabarets. Sometimes in these works the influence of Forain and Steinlen is still felt, however, the interpretation of images, the criticism of the look - all this goes back to Daumier. We're talking about kinship here, not influences! The tradition of paintings is easy to define, but it does not explain their lively and restless power, their unique vision. In lithographs and posters, Lautrec reaches the same heights as in his portraits and oil paintings. It is impossible to separate what is inseparably connected with each other, what exactly as a whole has entered the great tradition of French painting.

Singer Yvette Guilbert (1894) refuses a poster project proposed by Lautrec, dissatisfied with its naked truthfulness. However, soon (Lautrec's fame is growing) he agrees to a cycle of 16 lithographs (the i-oe French edition of 1894 contains 16 lithographs with the text of Geffroy, the 2nd English edition of 1898 - II new lithographs with an introduction by Arthur Bile). Lautrec captured the appearance of the famous singer, typical postures, gestures he found for her. Yvette Guilbert was not the only singer and dancer who was inspired by the look created by Lautrec. Among the most famous portraits of I. Gilbert is also the sketch "Portrait of Yvette Gilbert" (1894, tempera) from the collection of the State. Museum of Fine Arts named after A.S. Pushkin in Moscow.

Toulouse-Lautrec arranges the first exhibition of his works in 1893 together with the artist Charles Morin. The exhibition presents about 30 of his paintings (including posters painted in 1892).

Lautrec invites Degas to the exhibition, whose opinion he attaches particular importance to. The 59-year-old master, distinguished by his taciturnity and not accustomed to praise, examines the paintings of Lautrec with interest and remarks almost before leaving: "So, Lautrec, it feels like you know your craft." It is said that the eyes of Toulouse-Lautrec at that moment lit up with a joyful fire, which no one had seen in them for a long time. Recall that four years later Lautrec will again hear praise from the lips of Degas.

These were happy years of creativity. Creativity, but not life. The advice and warnings of doctors did not help. The immoderate consumption of alcohol undermines the health of the artist. He leaves for the south of France to his mother, but with all the greater despair indulges in nightly revelry without measure and without end after returning to Paris. His despair is as strong as his will to live. The growth of his popularity at this time is facilitated not so much by his work, but by the lifestyle that he leads. Several canvases are added to the gallery of male portraits, only confirming the above. In 1893, he paints a portrait of his former classmate Louis Pascal, a financier and dandy, one of his closest friends. The portrait of Monsieur Delaporte in the Jardin de Paris (1893), like the portrait of Pascal, is one of the best works Lautrec the portrait painter. Lautrec's model ceases to be a model, it "comes to life", going into real space and time, Lautrec "actualizes" it. An extremely characteristic episode is connected with the portrait of Delaporte, testifying to the fate of the works of Toulouse-Lautrec. Shortly after the death of the artist, the painting was bought by the Society of Friends of the Luxembourg Museum in order to donate it to the museum and present Lautrec's work with its rightful place in the state collection. But the gift must be submitted to the jury. The jury does not accept the gift. Influential friends of Lautrec protest. The question is again discussed, but the jury insists on its decision. Chairman Leon Bonnat, a former teacher of Lautrec, resolutely refuses to accept the painting. Mr. Delaporte's portrait is now in the famous Copenhagen Glyptothek. Mention should also be made of the portraits of "M. Painted in the halls of Parisian cafes or on the fiery red sidelines of the Comédie Francaise, the portraits of this period are distinguished by a rare color and compositional perfection. Gesture psychologically corresponds to facial expressions. And vice versa. The external image is just an excuse to reproduce the internal portrait, intense pain or joy, the despair of loss or the delight of success. Portraits that have become a book of characters, hobbies and passions. They are more than true. They are reality itself, with their own life, with which drawing, color, and manner of writing harmonize.

We have already talked about the lithographs of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, about his posters. Well-known critics, Lautrec's contemporaries Arsen Alexander and Francis Jourdain, publish an article on the artist's work (1893). Alexander in the magazine "L Art Franchise" (29. VII) under the title - "The one who dances - Jeanne Avril", Jourdain in "La Plume" - "Modern poster and Toulouse-Lautrec" (15. XI). These articles deal primarily with graphics by Lautrec. Much less attention is paid to his paintings. Color lithograph "Englishman at the Moulin Rouge", poster "Aristide Bruat (both 1892) and other posters of 1891-93. considered in their relationship with the development of French posters and lithography of the end of the century. The assessment of criticism corresponds to the actual value of these works.

The typographers Ankur and She create bright, almost luminous colors for the artist. Technically perfect works come out from under their machines. Lautrec's lithographs are becoming more and more famous and attracting the attention of many collectors. Lautrec draws witty congratulations for weddings, birthdays, invitations to receptions for his friends. The number of lithographs always corresponds to the number of invitees. Toulouse-Lautrec observes the numbering of sheets and destroys the lithographic stone, to the great regret of the merchants (often in front of the printers). His lithographs begin to appear regularly in the weekly "L Escarmouche". Too short existence of the magazine (from 12/XI1893 to 16/III 1894) did not allow Lautrec to publish more than 12 sheets in it. the famous 49-year-old "Sarah Bernhardt in Phaedra", "Antigone", "Learned Women", "Faust" with the artists Lelua and Marguerite Morin. Next, Lautrec draws a number of lithographs for theater programs. Desiree Dio composes famous "chansons" based on the texts of Jean Richepin. Lautrec creates lithographed illustrations for 14 of them (1895). Dancer Mae Milton commissions a poster from Lautrec to ensure her success on a tour of America. It is stipulated that it will never be printed in France. And yet this work hangs for several years in the studio of Pablo Picasso. The painting "Blue Room" ("Toilet") - 1901 - with a poster of Lautrec on the wall testifies to Picasso's love for the work of Toulouse-Lautrec.

We have already said that the first attempts to create illustrations were made by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec at the age of 15. The lithographs and thematic albums he worked on could not but remind him of his youthful attempts. The first mature experiments date back to 1896. On the table at Lautrec lies Goncourt's novel "Elise the Prostitute". The artist reads the novel, turns the pages and makes pencil sketches and watercolor sketches right on them. He intends to transfer these illustrations to separate sheets, but postpones his intention, and then completely loses interest in the work he has begun. It was only in 1931 that a publisher was found who accurately reproduces reproductions of 16 drawings and watercolors placed on the edges and in the text of the novel. Daniel Jacomet publishes the Goncourt book with a circulation of 175 copies. Only specialists manage to establish which of them belongs to Lautrec. At the end of 1897, Lautrec draws 10 page-sized lithographs and 6 small lithographs for Georges Clemenceau's novel At the Foot of Sinai. Toulouse-Lautrec's last illustrated book was Jules Renard's Tales from the Life of Nature (1899). Lautrec created 22 lithographs of animals, some of which are already marked with the seal of the artist's severe mental illness. The cruel scene with the dog belongs to the realm of hallucinations of a person suffering from persecution mania. The deformed drawing, dated February 8, 1899, is Lautrec's last work before he was taken to the asylum for the mentally ill.

Let us return, however, to 1894, which is associated with Lautrec's stay in brothels, his paintings of prostitutes, his so-called period of salons. In critical literature, this period is often given inappropriately much attention. Various psychological moments are analyzed, protest, rebellion and mockery of Lautrec are noted. The artist's work is often explained by his human injury. The sensation caused by the message that Toulouse-Lautrec lives on the rue de Moulin, conjectures and rumors about paintings that the artist never exhibited during his lifetime, often served as food for authors of dubious literary exercises, who sought to single out only one part of it. Lautrec in painting depicts what had already been depicted in literature by Huysmans, Edmond de Goncourt, Zola, Maupassant and Charles Louis Philippe. "Nana" Zola, which enjoyed exceptional success and reached an unusual circulation of 200,000 copies for its time, did not, however, obscure the rest of the writer's work from us. We are not trying to prove that the whole meaning of his work lies in this one work. In painting, Carpaccio, Vermeer, Caravaggio and Hals touched on similar themes, Constantine Gies and Edgar Degas were undoubtedly Lautrec's predecessors. And, finally, is interest in the works Japanese masters engravings by Hokusai, Utamaro, Garunobu did not confront Lautrec with similar themes?

Lautrec observed and painted what he saw. Without embellishment, but also without scenes that he could not show the audience. Lautrec does not comment or emphasize the crudeness of the profession portrayed. But in his paintings there is no unnecessary "dramatization". He does not represent the women portrayed as more miserable than they were. The sketch and painting "In the salon on the rue de Moulin" (1894) leaves no doubt in this regard. Eternal expectation, immovable silence, silence. And the central figure, depicted with a force reminiscent of the frescoes of Piero della Francesco. Indifference, silence. Lautrec undoubtedly understood what a narrow strip separates him from the moment when the front side of his picture can turn into the reverse side of the reality depicted on it. He managed to avoid this danger. Similar obstacles stood in his way when creating further works. He overcame them with a brush and color.

In 1896, Lautrec published albums of lithographs "They" by Pelle. Thus ends the cycle of works dedicated to the life of women on the rue de Moulin and rue d Amboise. In the winter of 1895, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec visits London. After returning, he paints a portrait of Oscar Wilde (1895). The portrait of the writer during the outbreak of the scandal, written laconically, in a caricature-conditional manner, is more of a conceivable image, the realization of an imaginary image, rather than a "real" portrait. In artistic terms, the portrait is not very characteristic of Toulouse-Lautrec. Memories of friends testify to how disappointed Toulouse-Lautrec was in whose portrait he had wanted to paint for so long. The second version of the portrait, much closer to his previous works, as well as the portrait of Felix Feneon, was used by the artist in the painting "Dancing La Goulue" (1895). Two three-meter canvases ordered by La Goulee for her theatrical booth were cut into pieces and sold to various collectors. It was only relatively recently that the painting was restored. Its individual parts were combined into one and currently adorn the walls of the museum "Jeu de Raite" in Paris.

Toulouse-Lautrec exhibits again at the Society of the Twenty in Brussels. At the invitation of Octave Mauz, he comes to the opening of the exhibition. According to the memoirs of Jourdain, he visits art galleries with friends and studies the works of Brueghel and Cranach. He glances through the hall with the works of Frans Hals, the rest of the exposition does not interest him. At the same time, he met with a circle of writers grouped around the Revue Blanche (led by the Natanson brothers). The group includes Tristan Bernard, Jules Renard, Felix Feneon, Romain Coolus, Paul Leclerc. Almost all of them we find in the drawings and paintings of Lautrec. Of the artists close to the group, Bonnard, Villard, Vallotton should be mentioned.

Happy time when the artist begins to recognize the younger generation, the time of creating his best lithographs and posters, the period of work on the most mature canvases. First of all, one of the best works of Lautrec should be named - "Clowness Sha-Yu-Kao" (1895) with the writer Tristan Bernard in the background. At first glance, a simple color scheme, a light, confident brush that just touches the canvas. However, this brush (one should not be afraid of comparisons) is worthy of Velasquez's portraits. The paintings of artists are brought together by the nobility of gesture, the pride of the depicted images. But at the same time, melancholy and sadness are reflected in the eyes of Sha-Yu-Kao. A dense network of lines and calm, almost monochromatic color planes create a unique rhythm of the work. Together with the painting "Two Dancers at the Moulin Rouge" (1892) from the Prague National Gallery, it represents one of the heights of Lautrec's artistic genius and provides an opportunity to study the richest palette of his artistic techniques.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec arranges his second exhibition on the Rue Forest in the Manzy-Joyant Gallery in 1896. The paintings hang in two halls of the gallery. One of them, however, remains closed, and Lautrec takes only his closest friends there. He refuses to publicly exhibit the "saloon" paintings, and refuses to sell them. Most of them remained in the artist's studio and are currently in the museum in Albi.

Together with Maurice Guibert, Lautrec decides to visit Spain in order to get to know El Greco's paintings better. Only an accident, or rather the reluctance of Guibert, prevented Lautrec from going further - to Dakar. Lautrec finally agrees to leave the ship, but takes from him a drawing of a beautiful woman, known as a lithograph of a passenger from No. 54. The friends visit Madrid and Toledo. The paintings of El Greco shake them. A year later, Toulouse-Lautrec leaves for London to open his exhibition at the Goupil Gallery. The Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII) visits the exhibition. He knows the Moulin Rouge. He also knows La Goulue and wants to meet the Montmartre artist. But he sleeps in a chair with a heavy sleep of an approaching illness.

A dangerous illness worries friends. Tips don't help. Temporary trips out of town with the Natansons do not help either. Lautrec draws little in 1897 - He creates a portrait of Paul Leclerc, written with a confident brush and marked by the mature skill of his best works. However, already in 1898, the bibliography of the artist's works, compiled by Joyan, notes a tragically small number, for the most part, only begun and unfinished works. We have said that February 1898 marks a crisis in the course of the illness of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Severe mental illness progresses rapidly. After one of the most violent attacks, Lautrec is transferred to the hospital of Dr. Semelin in Saint-James. Toulouse-Lautrec soon realizes where he is. He writes a letter to his father: "Father, you have the opportunity to prove that you fair man. They locked me up in prison, but everything that is locked up is dying ... "The letter remained unanswered. The shadow of Van Gogh from Saint-Remy is approaching. If only he could work like that artist! Paint pictures, draw! Friends who are occasionally allowed to visit the sick , bring paper, paints, pencils. good mood, he is cheerful and wants to draw, draw as much as possible to prove that he is healthy. He must be cured in order to return to the palette and paints again. Remembering those long days that he spent in the circus, Toulouse-Lautrec begins to draw from memory, without manuals and models. 39 sheets of clowns, riders, acrobats

make up a single cycle, called the artist "Circus". This period covers only one year, or rather, several months of one 1899. Lautrec strives to accurately convey the movements that he remembers so well. Fascinated by the desire to achieve perfection of performance, he compositionally encloses his works in a circle of an arena - a circle of seats without spectators, a hopelessly empty and colorless space. Do these drawings characterize the former lightness and conciseness of the artist, the ability to convey movement with one stroke? The persistent desire to convince everyone that he is healthy, the desire to break free turned the hospital ward into an atelier. In May, apparently prematurely, Lautrec returns to Paris.

En route to a resort in southwestern France, Lautrec stops at Le Havre. Here, in the Zvezda bar, he meets an Englishwoman who fascinates him so much that he orders paints and a canvas to be sent from Paris. He paints a portrait. For the last time, the colors burn with bright tones in the painting "Englishwoman from ss Stars 6 in Le Havre "(1899). The ease and speed of the brush, the confidence of the drawing, as it were, transfer this portrait to those years when Lautrec did not yet need to draw the Circus cycle. From this picture, the path leads to the last period in Lautrec's work, limited to 1899- 1901 (reproductions XXXVIII-XLV) Cured, but not quite healthy, Lautrec is under the constant supervision of his friend Vio.In Paris, he paints the paintings - "In Ra Mor" (1899) and "At the Races" (1899). Heavy, sometimes as if faded colors in the picture of the bar, where Degas and Vlaminck later painted their canvases! The artist loses the former color immediacy and confidence of the drawing He visits the world exhibition with the Eiffel Tower still shining with fresh colors. in a wheelchair, he still visits the Fuller Theater and watches the game of the Japanese actress Sada Yako, who conquered him. However, this unforgettable impression was no longer reflected in his work. Fatal disease undermines the health of Toulouse-Lautrec. Fatigue covers not only his body, but also his spirit. Friends are increasingly worried about the difficult state of mind of the artist. He tries to draw, but is forced, as a rule, to stop work soon. And yet in 1900 he still creates three wonderful works. This painting "Toilet of Madame Poupu l" is one of those works of the mature Lautrec, in which he finds a balance between detail and general design. With a few strokes, he conveys the texture of the fabric, the reflection of the bottles, the smoothness of the skin and hair. It seems that in this picture everything vibrates with a tremor of indefinite light. As if before his death, Lautrec wanted to show everything that can be achieved in painting. Calmness and poise characterize the Portrait of a Hatter. The softness of light and shadows convey the expression and look of a young woman. A portrait that is somewhat reminiscent of an old portrait of a mother. And finally, a large portrait of Maurice Joyan. Once again, strength has returned to Toulouse-Lautrec, and he creates a wonderful portrait that reflects all his talent. This is a monument of friendship and love for a person who, for many years, in the most difficult moments of despair and disbelief in his own strength, helped the artist, a friend who found not only words of consolation, but also words of confidence, a like-minded person who persistently fought for the recognition of Lautrec's work.

These are the last 3 paintings that Toulouse-Lautrec was able to complete. Several portraits of friends, among them the portrait of Romain Coolus, painted in the same (1899) year, remain unfinished. The missing lifeless faces testify not so much to the state of mind of those depicted as to the illness of the portrait painter.

At the beginning of 1901, the artist reviews and signs his paintings and drawings. He apparently already realizes how little he has left to live, that death will soon close the doors to his studio. Several lithographs also belong to this time. Memories of past successes associated with this genre give firmness to a sore hand. But the disease returns again. Lautrec is already exhausted. In Bordeaux, he begins to work on several scenes from theater life. With heavy pasty lines, he is trying for the last time to paint a portrait of his cousin Tapier de Seleyran at the final exams in medicine - "The Exam" (1901). However, the colors and drawing of the picture no longer seem to belong to Lautrec. What's this? The defeat of the artist or an attempt to enter a new path, for which there is no strength left? Gotgard Jedlicka drew attention to the fact that towards the end of his life, Lautrec creates paintings, as if opening a window to some new world. One way or another, but undoubtedly it was this picture that helped such an artist to find himself, such as, for example, Georges Rouault. But even though it was signed, it remained unfinished.

In August 1901, Lautrec was transported to his mother in Malrome Castle. For the last time he takes up a brush to paint a portrait of Mr. Vio in admiral's uniform. The doctor does not allow him to continue the work he has begun. The artist is denied his last joy. Lautrec's last wish is not fulfilled. He dies fully conscious at the age of 37 on September 9, 1901.

A sad end to a sad life.

Conclusion

A great artist, an unfortunate man - Toulouse-Lautrec depicts the world around him with cruel truthfulness. He understands joy, but pain is also close to him. He sees not only brilliance, but also poverty. Several times he exhibits his works with "independents". Artists from the Nabis group consider him theirs, but in painting he did not belong to any school. As a rule, Toulouse-Lautrec is called among the post-impressionist artists. The work of Cezanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Seurat and Toulouse-Lautrec is, indeed, to a certain extent a reaction to impressionism, although most of them exhibited their works together with the impressionists. These days, the differences are blurred. And if by impressionism we understand not only the technique of painting, some new optical discoveries, but also a program of consistent modernity of art, actualization of themes, then we will have to call Manet, Degas, and Toulouse-Lautrec Impressionists. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec died just as his name was beginning to be known. Like Daumier, he did not live to see his fame. After all, his own father confesses in March 1902 in a letter to Maurice Joyan: "You believed in his work more than I did, and you were right." Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was a contemporary artist in the fullest sense of the word. He knew how to love and hate, because he was a man of flesh and blood. His work, flourished in such a short period of time, is one of the cornerstones of contemporary art. The 31 posters he created during his lifetime marked the birth of truly modern art. We have already talked about those artists who were inspired by the work of Lautrec, who studied with him. They unmistakably determined the place of Toulouse-Lautrec in history modern painting.

Name of the painting: In the salon on the Rue Moulin

Year of creation 1894

Name of the painting: Clowness Sha-Yu-Kao at the Moulin Rouge

Year of creation 1895

Painting name: Model

Year of creation 1896

Name of the painting: Reclining Nude

Year of creation: 1897

Bibliography

1. Western European art of the second half of the 19th century. Digest of articles. - M.: Art, 1975.

Grutroy G. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. - Singapore: Belfax, 1996.

Starodubova V.V. Toulouse-Lautrec // European Painting of the 13th-20th Centuries: Encyclopedic Dictionary. - M.: Art, 1999.

Sternow Suzanne A. Art Nouveau: The Spirit of a Belle Epoque / Per. from English. - Minsk: Belfax, 1997.

Based on materials from the book "Encyclopedia of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism" / Comp. T.G. Petrovets. - M.: OLMA-PRESS, 2000. - 320 p.: ill.

Vorkunova N. Toulouse-Lautrec. M., 1972.

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TOULOUSE-LAUTREC HENRI

(born in 1864 - died in 1901)

"I'm banging my head against the wall! And all this is for art, which is slipping out of my hands and, perhaps, will never be grateful to me for what I am doing for it now.

Toulouse-Lautrec

"We understand now that Toulouse-Lautrec seemed too unusual to us only because it was natural to the extreme."

Tristan Bernard

Toulouse-Lautrec lived a short but colorful life. Despite the injury, he never expected compassion from people and he himself laughed at himself, forestalling ridicule from the outside. He devoted himself entirely to art and worked tirelessly every day, despite his poor health.

Henri-Marie-Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec was born on November 24, 1864 in Albi, a city located in the southeastern part of the French Massif Central. He was the son of Count Alfonso de Toulouse-Lautrec-Montha and Countess Adele, née Tapier de Seleyran. The father of the future artist came from an old aristocratic family, who had lived in the vicinity of Toulouse since the 12th century. Mother was born in the family of an influential government official. The artist's father and mother were cousins, but marriages between Lautrec and Tapier were not uncommon. Some researchers believe that Henri's morbidity and subsequent injuries are to some extent explained precisely by the fact that he was born in a consanguineous marriage.

Toulouse-Lautrec received a good home education, as befitted a descendant of one of the most ancient and noble families in the country. In 1872 he entered the elite Lyceum Fountain (now the Lyceum Condorcet). A lively and temperamental boy, he was much smaller than his peers. Narrow shoulders, thin legs, sunken chest - everything seemed to foreshadow the coming disaster. The father was the complete opposite of the son. Tall and large, a tireless hunter and traveler, a passionate lover of women and horse racing, he led a stormy life and hoped that the only heir (the second son Richard died before he was a year old) would follow in his footsteps. Alas, Henri was destined for a completely different fate.

The boy passionately wanted to be like his father. Hunting, walking with dogs and riding determined the rhythm of the young Lautrec's life. At the same time, his first sketches and watercolors appeared, demonstrating the undeniable talent of the young author. When he was thirteen years old, his father gave his son a falconry manual with the inscription: “Remember, my son, that life can be healthy only in the wild, among nature. Bondage leads to degeneration and death.”

On May 30, 1878, Henri fell unsuccessfully from a low chair. What for another teenager would have been just an unfortunate episode, for him became a tragedy: the fall led to a fracture of the neck of the left femur. Gypsum. Weeks of immobility. Movement in wheelchair. All doctors and all medicines have been tried, but the boy's bones are too fragile and do not grow together well.

However, both he and his loving mother still hoped for a recovery. But the miracle didn't happen. The following summer, history repeated itself - during a walk, Henri slipped and fell into a small ravine. As a result - a fracture of the neck of the right femur.

He will forever remain a cripple, besides, his legs will partially atrophy and he will stop growing (the height of an adult Lautrec barely reached 1.5 m). A handsome boy turns into an ugly young man: a disproportionately large head, huge nose, short legs.

But Henri does not lose heart. He courageously and with his characteristic humor tries to come to terms with his fate. The sick, bedridden Lautrec writes: “I draw and write as much as I can, until my hand drops from fatigue.” The boy's talent becomes more and more obvious, and the mother begins to understand that she is facing a future talented artist. Countess Adele continues to take her son to hospitals. The pain in my legs is slowly subsiding. In 1880, Lautrec writes in his diary about his "passion for drawing" that captured him.

When Count Alfonso finally realized that his son would never ride a horse and would not continue the traditions and heir to the de Toulouse-Lautrec lifestyle, he simply stopped taking care of the boy. Until his death, the artist perceived his father's attitude as a betrayal. He was strongly attached to his mother, who from the very beginning realized that his son would become an artist. They were very close by joint trips to resorts after tragic fractures in 1878-1879. Mother was the only member of this noble family who understood and accepted Henri's work. In 1892, the artist writes to her: "My family cannot share my joy, but you are completely different."

In November 1881, he takes the exam for a bachelor's degree, but because of the irresistible desire to engage only in painting further education stops.

On the advice of Rene Prensto, an animal painter and family friend, Toulouse-Lautrec in March 1882 begins to study with famous artist Leon Bonn. The Bonn workshop was one of the most famous in Paris. The master bluntly declares to the novice artist: “There is something in your work, in general it’s not bad, but your drawing is simply terrible!” Criticism only spurs Henri, ione plunges headlong into work.

In the winter of 1882, Bonnat closed his workshop, and Henri moved on to Fernand Cormon, also a recognized painter specializing in historical subjects. At Cormon, Henri meets Vincent van Gogh, Emile Bernard, Louise Ankvetino and other young artists. Friendly relations are established between them, but at the same time, creative rivalry also arises.

Gradually the friends move away from the traditional, conservative style taught by Cormon. At first, they are indiscriminately fond of impressionism, but soon their inherent innovative tendencies appear in their work. The period of trials and experiments in painting coincides with the changes that take place in the lifestyle of Toulouse-Lautrec. The young artist discovers Montmartre, at that time a poor district of Paris, which became the abode of artistic bohemia, and falls in love with the relaxed atmosphere reigning there.

In the summer of 1884, Lautrec left the Parisian home of his parents and moved to live in Montmartre, in the apartment of the young artist Rene Grenier, whom he met while studying with Cormon. In the same house on the rue Fontaine on the first floor in 1879-1891 housed the workshop of Edgar Degas, whom Lautrec considered one of the best contemporary artists.

The artist's mother is unhappy with this decision. She is afraid that without her, her son will go down the "crooked" path. However, he often writes letters to her, and this calms Countess Adele a little. "I'm bored in bars, I have no desire to leave the house, the only thing left to do is paint and sleep." The artist's decision does not delight the father, who would like his son to live in a more decent area, such as the Champs Elysees.

It soon became clear that the parents' concern was completely justified: the artist's life is changing very quickly. In letters written in the spring and summer of 1886, there are hints of "an addiction to the bottle." It even happens that he writes to his mother about the nights he spent "on the pavement."

At the end of the 19th century, Montmartre was known as the habitat of the overthrowers of the established order. In numerous cabarets and music bars, the legitimacy of existing social norms and prohibitions was constantly questioned. Montmartre of that time is the center of corrupt love. Toulouse-Lautrec discovers there a very special world, still unknown to him, and this world will be reflected in his works. In a letter dated December 1886, he states that he does not want to write about what he is currently painting, as he believes that some of his paintings are "out of bounds." It even comes to the point that he begins to sign his paintings with a pseudonym so as not to compromise the eminent family.

In the last months of training with Cormon (which ended in early 1887), Lautrec devoted less and less time to traditional themes and techniques. Along with the classical technique of writing, he increasingly uses impressionistic techniques that enliven his drawing. First of all, he chooses realistic themes, which will dominate in his subsequent works: city festivities, street performances, dance evenings, circus, cabaret, theater.

The bold images of his paintings will cause him to leave (or exile) from the usual circle of secular society. The more Lautrec moves away from aristocratic relatives, the stronger his connection with the world of Montmartre becomes, which becomes a source of inexhaustible inspiration for the artist. In the mid-80s, Lautrec was predominantly nocturnal. He is a regular visitor to the Mirliton cabaret, owned by his friend, singer and composer Aristide Bruan. For a long time next to him the first and, apparently, the only love Suzanne Valadon, who at first was the model of Edgar Degas and Auguste Renoir, and later became a famous artist herself.

Montmartre then thundered with music in the evenings and was famous throughout Paris for constant entertainment and dancing. In the Moulin de la Galette, and later in the Moulin Rouge, Lautrec watches with enthusiasm the frivolous papas of the then fashionable can-can. Then he met the "cabaret stars" of that time, the dancers who became his "muses" - La Goulue, Jane Avril and pop clown Sha-Yu-Kao.

The artist does not miss the opportunity to visit the brothels of Montmartre. It happens that he spends there for several weeks in a row. These nightly adventures become a source of his inspiration. As he himself said: "Every evening I go to work in a bar." His best friend, Maurice Joyayan, confirming what has been said, clarifies: “Some brothels became his main apartment. Lautrec painted there without respite, noting every incident in the life of the inhabitants of these institutions.

Creativity Lautrec - a kind of poem dedicated to women. Dancers, laundresses, women of easy virtue, just friends of the artist - they all became a source of inspiration for him. Being in the world of women, Lautrec depicted their life with great passion, sometimes with irony, but always sensuality is seen in his paintings. His friend Paul Leclerc recalled: “Lautrec adored women, and the less logical they behaved, the more he liked them. He had only one condition: they had to be real.”

The first exhibition of works by Toulouse-Lautrec takes place in 1886 at the Mirliton cabaret. In May of the following year, Lautrec exhibited his work in Toulouse, as part of the International Exhibition organized by the Academy of Fine Arts, under the pseudonym Treklo. But only participation in the Brussels "Exhibition XX", where eleven of his works were presented, brings him true recognition. From that moment on, Lautrec feels like a real artist. He writes to his mother that "you need to exhibit wherever possible, because this is the only opportunity to be noticed."

He does not take part in the official Parisian Salons, but exhibits from the Salon des Indépendants, organized under the motto "Without pay and awards", along with artists such as Georges Seurat, Paul Signac and Camille Pissarro. At the sixth Salon

Independents” in March 1890, Lautrec presents “Dance at the Moulin Rouge” and “Mademoiselle Dio at the piano”. After many years of studying academism, Lautrec comes to the extreme avant-garde. But at the same time, he distances himself from all existing trends, defending his creative independence.

By 1891, the unique style of Lautrec was finally formed. He finally became an artist whose works are of interest to art lovers, exhibition organizers, and publishing houses. His work is warmly received by critics. The artist is exhibited together with nabids 18 and representatives of other trends of the then avant-garde.

Creativity Toulouse-Lautrec bears the imprint of his time. Mastering a variety of artistic techniques, carried away by various trends in painting, he, nevertheless, was able to maintain his originality. The original and original style allowed him to capture the spirit of the era in which he lived and which he carefully observed. The principle of his creative life was to draw and depict what seemed really important, even if they were fleeting moments. He made painting the property of ordinary people.

Although almost all the artistic trends of the late nineteenth century can be seen in the work of Toulouse-Lautrec, his work cannot be attributed to any current. This is not realism, not impressionism and not symbolism. He repeated: "I do not belong to any school, but I work independently in my corner." The originality of his work is fully consistent with his unusual nature.

Like everyone great artist, Toulouse-Lautrec absorbed the traditions of both old and modern masters. Like all artists of his time, Lautrec experienced a fascination with impressionism. On his first canvases, made in 1878 and 1879, strokes are intermittent, light colors predominate in the palette. Among the Impressionists, Lautrec preferred those artists in whose work portraits dominated landscapes - Edouard Manet and Auguste Renoir. “There is only man,” Lautrec argued. “Landscape is something extra and should only be used to show the essence of human nature and human character.” About Claude Monet, he said: "He would be a much better artist if he had not abandoned the images of people to such an extent."

He adored Edgar Degas. From the mid-1880s, at the time when he was studying classical fine art in the workshop of Cormon, Lautrec learned and later began to use the technique characteristic of Degas. He appreciated Degas' color scheme and the subtle lighting effects obtained through a unique technique. It was the techniques borrowed from Degas that allowed Lautrec to capture the very essence of fleeting scenes and skillfully convey it on his canvases. Lautrec became a worthy heir to Degas, which was especially pronounced when he began to paint scenes in cabarets and cafes in Montmartre.

Toulouse-Lautrec drew inspiration from various sources. To understand his work in all depth, you need to turn to Italian artist Renaissance Vittore Carpaccio, to the Dutch Rembrandt and Frans Hals, as well as to the Gothic, to the masters of Japanese engraving. Lautrec was not afraid to combine his own techniques with modern trends. In the early 1990s, he was close to the work of Nabids and Symbolists, which makes his drawing more calm, and the color scheme more harmonious. Lautrec's lithographs become more decorative, a period of creative flourishing begins. Without breaking away from topics close to reality, Lautrec introduces the grotesque into his work, close to his ironic character.

Lautrec brings his paintings closer to caricature. Already during the training in drawing at the courses of classical fine art, the artist had problems with the exact transfer of nature. “His paintings were never an accurate reflection of reality: they had some elements that brought it closer. He reflected life in striking images,” said journalist and critic Felix Feneon.

Lautrec had all the prerequisites for drawing caricatures. He was greatly influenced by cartoonists: Honoré Damier and Jean-Louis Forant. He finds in them the same disregard for everything ordered and idealized, which he himself differs from. Like them, he prefers the "polite and beautiful" art of drawing the ruthlessness of the caricature. Lautrec's gaze becomes even more critical and sharp.

It must be remembered that the irony of Lautrec does not arise from gloating. Quite the contrary, satirical images his dancers are full of warmth and sympathy. This is confirmed by the posters representing the dancer Jane Avril and the cabaret singer Yvette Hilber.

His whipping pencil is not devoid of compassion. “You sing praises in honor of the scoundrel and at the same time point to his open wounds,” one of the journalists addressed Lautrec in 1893. A year later, another critic praised his "accurate observations, full of taunts and derision." Toulouse-Lautrec was considered the artist of his era. In his paintings one can find many historical moments. He himself stressed the need for truth. He often claimed, speaking of his work, "I tried to convey the truth." The accuracy of the stroke allowed him to convey the naked reality of the end of the century. This is the greatness of the art of Toulouse-Lautrec.

At the end of the century, the technique of painting is experiencing a new round of development. Drawings in magazines, sketches in newspapers, lithographs in theater programs, advertisements on the walls: a new reality of art is born. Toulouse-Lautrec uses his talent in new areas that have opened up. When working on posters, he is forced to use a limited number of colors, which are superimposed in flat spots. This reinforces his propensity for unexpected and risky decisions and, in the end, becomes a characteristic feature of his work.

Applying a new printing technique, Toulouse-Lautrec is also making improvements in this area. Full of enthusiasm, he writes to his mother: “I have come up with a new technique in lithography. My experiments are moving forward without problems." In 1891, lithography was at the center of his hobbies. His first own work of this kind - "La Goulue at the Moulin Rouge" - won a resounding success. The minimalist style used by Lautrec fully met the requirements of the advertising poster. During this period, painting is relegated to the background. He begins to cooperate with publishers. Orders flow to him like a river: covers for scores, maps and menus for restaurants, illustrations for books.

At the end of 1894, by his own admission, he was swamped with work. Creativity Lautrec takes a completely different direction. He intrudes into the wider social environment, not wanting to achieve recognition of salons and galleries. His art is accessible to everyone. Of course, most of these works are making money, but this does not stop the artist from creating works. highest quality. His posters are masterpieces. Critic Felix Feneon called Lautrec "the artist of the street": "Here, instead of paintings closed in gilded frames and covered with dust, you can find real life art, color posters. This open-air exhibition is accessible to everyone.”

In early 1896, the Mangy-Joyant Gallery in Paris organized a large exhibition of works by Toulouse-Lautrec. But the artist's state of health is deteriorating, which every time more and more noticeably affects his work.

In the last period, the life story of Toulouse-Lautrec turns from a farce into a tragedy.

The lifestyle that the artist led for ten years undermined his already fragile body. Lautrec is increasingly complaining of weakness. Early in 1898 he writes: “Even a little effort becomes unbearable. Because of this, my creativity suffers, and I still have so much to do. He becomes more and more aggressive and restless. His inherent humor and love of life leave the artist.

But he continues to create, to create with passion, even at night, often with a bottle of wine. In this state, he creates about 60 lithographs, presented at an exhibition dedicated to his work in the London hall of the Goupil gallery in 1898. The artist falls asleep during the opening day, which was honored by the presence of the future King Edward VII.

Throughout the winter, he drinks deeply (alcoholism becomes chronic), suffers from insomnia, hallucinations and persecution mania. In March 1899, Toulouse-Lautrec's relatives put Toulouse-Lautrec in a psychiatric clinic near Paris, in the town of Neuilly. Staying in the hospital depresses him. “I am in captivity, but where there is no freedom, degeneration and death come!” he writes to his father, repeating his own words. In May, Henri leaves the clinic and finds the strength to create a wonderful album "Circus".

In the next two years, his paintings become increasingly gloomy and melancholy. During this period, next to him is distant relative Paul Villot, assigned to him by his relatives for supervision, so that the artist does not drink. In the spring of 1901, as if anticipating his death, Lautrec cleans up his studio, finishes sketches and signs paintings that did not have his signature.

On July 15 he leaves Paris with Paul Villot. The state of health is deteriorating. His legs are taken away. His mother takes him to the Malrome family estate, where on September 9, 1901, at the age of 37, he dies in her arms.

The work of Toulouse-Lautrec became a source of inspiration for Egon Schiele and Auguste Rodin. His portraits inspired Edouard Munch, for whom Toulouse-Lautrec was an unsurpassed genius in portraiture. It should not be forgotten that he influenced Pablo Picasso, who enthusiastically discovered the work of Lautrec on his first visit to Paris. But not only artists paid tribute to the genius of Toulouse-Lautrec. Famous director Federico Fellini said this about the great artist: “I have always considered Lautrec my brother and friend. Maybe because it was he who anticipated the shortness of the film, and after him the Lumiere brothers made their invention. And also, probably, because he - like me - was attracted by torn and discarded creatures.

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