Page 34 - YGARTUA: Magnum Opus - volume three
P. 34
The artist who captured Paris’
Cabarets and Dance Halls Henri
de Toulouse-Lautrec was a French
painter, printmaker, draughtsman,
caricaturist, and illustrator whose immersion kicking dancers with their layered petticoats
in the colourful and theatrical life of Paris and plumed hats remain among the most
in the late 19th century allowed him to popular and striking images of modern art.
produce a collection of enticing, elegant, (The Musee d’Orsay-the largest impressionist
and provocative images of the modern, art collection in the world, located on the left
sometimes decadent affairs of those times. bank of the river Seine, 7th arrondissement
Toulouse-Lautrec is among the best-known of Paris.
painters of the Post-Impressionist period,
with Paul Cezanne, Vincent van Gogh and “Enthralled by the history of the City of Lights
Paul Gauguin. The scene Lautrec stepped and surrounded by all that could enchant the
into was in the working-class district known eye and enrapture the imagination, it is no
as Montmartre, notorious for its thieves and wonder that artists from around the world
brothels as well as its hangouts for avant- want to experience painting and being there.
garde artists and literary anarchists.
“Throughout the years, the life story and
Within a decade he would be famous for his the wonderful figurative work of Toulouse-
spectacular posters of the Moulin Rouge Lautrec made a life-long impression upon
and other Parisian dance halls. More than me–his work captivated you, taking one to
a century later, his black-stockinged, high- another epoch. I just imagined that I was in
30
