| Dance At the Moulin Rouge |
| Henri Toulouse-Latrec (b Albi, 1864; d Gironde, 1901) |
| The Moulin Rouge, a dance hall in Montmartre, Paris, still exists today. At the end of the nineteenth century it was a popular venue for middle-class gentlemen who, accompanied by women of dubious character were entertained by lively spectacles and dancing. Toulouse-Lautrec, now one of the best known of all nineteenth-century French artist, frequently spent whole nights at the Moulin Rouge, drinking and sketching music-hall stars and members of royalty who wandered into this dark, somewhat seedy world. | The rapid style and visible brushstrokes of this work show that Toulouse-Lautrec painted as he sat in the dance hall. An aristocrat by birth who was severely disabled in childhood, Toulouse-Lautrec always felt isolated from society by his deformity. He preferred the company of the marginal classes and surrounded himself with actresses, clowns, dancers, and prostitutes who became the subjects of his paintings. |
|
From The Art Book © 1998 Phaidon Press Limited. © Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Henry P Melhenny Collection in memory of Frances P Melhenny. |