A major exhibition devoted to
Toulouse-Lautrec, the quintessential bohemian painter of fin-de-siècle Paris, is opening at the
Museo dell’Ara Pacis in Rome. The show features around 170 works from the Budapest Museum of Fine Arts, which span the artist’s career from 1891 to 1900, shortly before he died prematurely at the age of thirty-six.
Promoted by Roma Capitale – Capitoline Superintendency for Cultural Heritage, produced by Arthemisia Group and organized by Zètema Progetto Cultura, the exhibition brings to Rome the pick of the Toulouse-Lautrec Collection at the Budapest Museum of Fine Arts (Szépművészeti Múzeum) – one of the most important in Europe, with masterworks ranging from the Middle Ages to the 20th century. The Rome exhibition, curated by Zsuzsa Gonda and Kata Bodor, displays around 170 lithographs from the collection (including eight large-format posters and two covers of albums, each composed of about 10 lithographs, devoted to the French singer, actress and writer Yvette Guilbert), which will be on display at the Museo dell’Ara Pacis from 4 December 2015 to 8 May 2016.
The show is intended to give visitors a complete picture of Toulouse-Lautrec’s graphic output through posters, illustrations, sheet music covers and playbills, some of which are absolute rarities, since they were printed in signed and numbered limited editions with a dedication by the artist.
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec is considered the most celebrated master of the print and poster in the Parisian Belle Époque period. One of the most distinguishing features of his art is his portrayal of the most diverse aspects of humanity in everyday or entertaining situations, which the French bourgeoisie found fascinating. He drew most of his inspiration from Montmartre in Paris, and the majority of his works depict the nightlife and popular haunts in this quarter. They are snapshots of the quotidian rendered with great immediacy. In next to no time he became one of the most sought-after illustrators and draughtsmen in Paris, receiving commissions for posters advertising plays, ballets and shows, and for illustrations that appeared in leading contemporary magazines like Le Rire.
In addition to the works of Toulouse-Lautrec, the exhibition includes rare photos and film clips from the beginning of the 20th century which evoke the Parisian Belle Époque. There is also an interactive app that enables the visitor to learn about lithography and printing techniques at the end of the 19th century, from colour and large-scale reproduction to the birth of the advertising poster, which Henri anticipated with his art.
THE EXHIBITION AND THE ARTIST
The exhibition is divided into five thematic sections that cover the great French painter’s formative artistic and intellectual experiences, from the first works executed under the guidance of his teacher René Princeteau, to those of his early period in Paris, which are strongly indebted to Montmartre and Léon Bonnat and Fernand Cormon. The trajectory begins with his realistic academic studies, develops through the humorous and avant-garde influences of the Artistes Incohérents, and culminates in the Post-Impressionist works executed after his encounter with Théo van Rysselberghe and the painting of Seurat, Gauguin and Van Gogh.
Section 1 – Parisian Nights
In 1881 Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, scion of an ancient aristocratic family from the south of France, decided to become a painter. By then it had become quite clear that he could not follow in his father’s footsteps due to his genetic bone disease and his family agreed for him to continue his art studies in Paris. Henri easily fitted into the free, bohemian world of Montmartre where he not only found a home, but also themes to inspire his art. These included café-chantants and cabarets, the most popular haunts of fin-de-siècle Parisian night life (At the Moulin Rouge: La Goulue and her Sister, 1892; The Englishman at the Moulin Rouge, 1892; Caudieux, 1893).
Section 2 – The Stars
One of the most tangible and familiar signs of Toulouse-Lautrec’s cult of celebrity is the advertising poster featuring La Goulue, a dancer with a huge following, which he created for the Moulin Rouge in 1891.
The success of this first poster led to many other commissions, which brought him into contact with the most popular performers (Aristide Bruant in his Cabaret, 1893; Jane Avril, 1893; Divan Japonais, 1893). He became a good friend of the singer-songwriter and cabaret artist Aristide Bruant (1851–1925), whose image he helped to shape with a series of prints and lithographs, including Aristide Bruant in his Cabaret (1893), where the star is depicted wearing a voluminous cloak, wide-brimmed hat, and red scarf around his neck. The modernity of the stylized representations, composed of areas of solid colour, brought the artist unexpected overnight success.
The painter also established a friendship with the famous Parisian cabaret star Jane Avril (1868–1943), a sophisticate who appreciated his art, and portrayed her at a café-chantant in the poster Divan Japonais (1893). Jane Avril is also depicted as a connoisseur on the cover of L’Estampe originale, a publication in the form of an album promoting contemporary lithography (Cover for l’Estampe originale, 1893).
Section 3 – Women of the Night (I’ll take up quarters in a brothel … )
Toulouse-Lautrec liked the frivolity of brothels, indeed between 1892 and 1895 he often spent entire weeks in the maisons closes near the Opera and the Stock Exchange. He observed the girls for hours as they rested, played cards or applied their make-up. He liked to depict the lighter moments in brothels, and especially the prostitutes who did not make him feel ashamed of his stunted appearance. The complete lack of inhibition with which these women practised their profession made them the perfect models for him. This section includes the series of colour lithographs, Elles, of 1896, depicting intimate moments from the world of brothels with unusual empathy (Woman at the Tub; Seated Clowness; Mademoiselle Cha-U-Kao). Lautrec did not refrain from the subject matter of lesbian love, but treated it with special sensitivity (The Large Theatre Box, 1897).
Section 4 – In the Theatre (I don’t mind what is on. I always have a good time in theatre ... )
Between 1893 and 1896 Lautrec became an active participant of that exciting world of the theatre, designing programmes and portraying theatrical scenes (The Theatre Box with the Gilded Mask, 1893). He was captivated by Marcelle Lender, the actress of the Théâtre des Variétes, whose daringly erotic portrait bust printed in eight colours is a masterpiece in the history of lithography (Bust of Mademoiselle Marcelle Lender, 1895).
In his theatrical scenes the artist renders the intensity of the dramas or comedies with vigorous movements and powerfully contrasting light and shade, inspired both by Japanese woodcuts and Daumier’s images of theatre audiences (Princely Idyll, 1897).
Section 5 – Among Friends
The office and the homes of the editors of La Revue blanche were an important scene of Parisian social life. Here, Toulouse-Lautrec made several friends, and in 1895 he designed a poster for the magazine (Poster for La Revue blanche, 1895).
Although he experimented with new techniques, like drypoint, the influence of his early training and his fascination with natural elements and animals was always evident as his work developed. For example, horse-riding had been part of his aristocratic education as a youth, and it returned to the fore in his late period. This section sheds light on various aspects of Toulouse-Lautrec’s private life: his passion for the races at Longchamp (The Jockey, 1899), his daily outings in the Bois de Boulogne (Country Outing, 1897), and his love for an unknown woman sitting in a deckchair onboard a ship (The Passenger from Cabin 54, 1895).
The show is completed by the many book and cover illustrations that the artist created solely at the request of friends during his last years, including Cover for L'Etoile rouge (an anthology of poems by Paul Leclercq, one of the founders of La Revue Blanche) of 1898. The writer Victor Joze also asked him to do the cover for his novel (Cover for La Tribu d'Isidore, 1897) and Georges Clemenceau commissioned ten illustrations for the volume Au Pied du Sinai (1897), published in 1898.
This exhibition illustrates Toulouse-Lautrec’s eccentric art and nonconformist and provocative poetics – among the most sophisticated and groundbreaking of the fin-de-siècle period – through the works from the Budapest Museum of Fine Arts. He was a late discovery, but is now one of today’s most admired and appreciated artists.
“
... my drawing was not too bad, because the competition was mediocre.” These words of Henri’s – possessed the soul of a “tormented artist” who was not duly “recognized”, despite the fact that he was extremely optimistic and aware of the beauty of life. An essential beauty whose outlines are deliberately blurred, to be experienced through debauchery; a beauty rendered with bold, unconventional tints and without any frills, where both drawing and colour are concerned. No one after Toulouse Lautrec has succeeded in rendering imperfection so “perfectly”. This is his style.
