Original subtitles

Arguably, one of the most exciting and enigmatic artists of the post-impressionist era, Henri

de Toulouse-Lautrec, captured the newfound speed and beauty of Paris, the world capital

of art and culture in the late 19th century.

Toulouse-Lautrec was drawn to grand spectacles of the Parisian nightlife, and he captured

the excitement of modern urban life with a perspective that was entirely his own.

Taking advantage of the latest technology to disseminate his art far and wide, while

his colleagues were exhibiting their art to a select few in their salons, Toulouse-Lautrec

posters were everywhere in the streets of Paris.

His distinctive, modern style continues to fascinate 150 years later.

He's one of the most recognizable post-impressionists.

You only have to look at the number of movies, books, and songs that reference him to see

that.

Let's find out why.

He was born on November 24, 1864, as Count Henri-Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec Monfa.

That's right, he was technically born into the nobility.

But before you get too excited, though, noble titles had been abolished and restored several

times since the French Revolution, and were made completely honorific by 1870.

So his courtesy title didn't mean much legally or politically.

It did carry some weight socially, though, especially in the more conservative countryside,

where the counts of Toulouse could trace their origins back for generations.

The Toulouse-Lautrec family tended to keep things in the family, so to speak, to preserve

their prestigious bloodline, which, as we know, doesn't always turn out so well.

His parents were first cousins.

And after generations of inbreeding, Henri was born with a number of health issues and

genetic disorders.

When Henri was 13, he broke his leg, and for reasons thought to be genetic, it never healed

properly.

He stayed in bed for months, reading and painting.

The next year, he broke his other leg, which also never healed completely.

Both legs stopped growing altogether.

But the rest of his body developed predictably, which meant, as an adult, he had very short

legs and was just under five feet tall, but with an adult-sized torso.

His father, Alphonse Charles, was a big hunter and also a big womanizer, always out killing

animals and cheating on his wife, and basically was never around.

Henri's accident meant he couldn't ride horses or participate in hunts, so his father pretty

much lost interest in him.

Fortunately, Henri was close to his mother, Adele, and they had a very loving and sweet

relationship.

She was very encouraging and supportive of him when he began to display obvious artistic

talent.

This may have been one of the better inheritances from his family because his father was actually

an accomplished draftsman, and so too were his uncle and grandfather.

There was a long tradition of amateur artists in the family, painting their horses and hunting

expeditions.

It seems like there should have been a natural connection there between father and son, as

Henri clearly inherited the talent and the interest in art as well.

And fortunately, it was the other half of the family lifestyle, the hunting and the horse

riding, that Henri wouldn't be able to do with his disabilities.

And in this family, the drawings and paintings were only there to glorify the hunting and horse

riding.

Curious family dynamic.

Even so, he tried painting horses and hunters for a little while, but his heart wasn't

in it.

Here we see another example of a young artist who was isolated emotionally and physically,

giving them a lot of extra time to think and draw and to see the world in a unique and

more empathetic way.

He was often ridiculed for his appearance, which he was extremely sensitive about.

He also took part in mocking his own appearance, but the criticism and rejection cut quite deep,

and was something he struggled with his entire life.

I love this dog painting he made around this time.

I'm not sure if it's finished or not, but I hope he considered this done.

And I love the confidence and wildness of the brushstrokes, which are so loose and expressive,

yet so precise as well.

Also, the subtle control of light and shadow within a limited value range.

These are remarkable skills that would be quite advanced for a teenager to have.

He's not the best student, though, only passing his bachelorate on his second try.

And a family friend with some connections helped Henri to convince his mom, Adele, to let him

try his hand at art instead.

As the friend had connections with Leon Bonat, an academic painter, Bonat was famous for his

portraits and biblical scenes that were big hits at the salon.

What Adele was imagining was that her son was going to become a famous academic painter like

Bonat, and Toulouse-Lautrec was a quick learner and picked up a lot in the short time he worked

with him.

Bonat soon started a major new project, though, and didn't have time to tutor him anymore.

So Toulouse-Lautrec begins to study with Fernand Cormann, another academic painter.

But he didn't do typical stuffy and boring academic paintings.

He specialized in imaginative scene paintings.

There's something intensely visceral about the figures in his work.

Cormann was much in demand in his day and received large, well-paid commissions, including

a famous series he did for the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, spending years

painting very gnarly, Stone Age paintings.

But Cormann did not think highly of Impressionism, and he would say that the new art happening

in Paris was dragging painting through the gutters.

On the other hand, he also encouraged Toulouse-Lautrec to think for himself, and that he should go

out into those streets and find what inspired him.

So he was grumpily nudging him in the right direction.

Cormann seems to have had a knack for training the kinds of artists who he detested, as he

also worked with Vincent van Gogh and several other post-impressionists.

Armed with Cormann's advice, what is the first thing Toulouse-Lautrec goes out to paint?

Apparently a prostitute.

Allegedly, his friends put him up to it and paid for her services, but this would not be

the last time Henri would enjoy the company of sex workers.

It would become a theme in his life, as Toulouse-Lautrec had an affinity for sex workers, both as a

client and, as we'll see, a friend.

Toulouse-Lautrec will continue studying under Cormann for several years.

I like this self-portrait he does around this time.

The atmosphere of the background is moody and stormy.

The double candle lets us know it's a mirror.

And then there's the looseness and confidence of all the brush marks.

So there's a lot of life and energy happening in this painting.

Despite the fact that he's really minimizing himself, he is small, about the same size as

the random objects, and his face is mostly in shadow, partially obscuring his likeness.

But Henri was not to be discouraged, and by now he doesn't really see eye-to-eye with

Cormann anyway.

Instead, he's becoming good friends with the other young hipsters of Montmartre, artists

like Emile Bernard, Vincent van Gogh, and Louise Anquitin.

We'll get a chance to talk about them more in later lectures.

Not only is he getting exposed to their Bohemian-Parisian lifestyle—a far cry from the stuffy, aristocratic

world he grew up in—but he's also seeing his new friends and colleagues paint

in ways Cormann wouldn't dream of showing him.

He's also getting to know the old guard—he's looking at paintings by Degas and Honor Dommier.

They were doing some really experimental things in drawing and printmaking that would inspire

Toulouse-Lautrec.

And like the Nabi group, he's getting into the hottest craze in Parisian society—Japanese

woodblock prints.

In particular, he loved a deluxe form of Japanese print called Surimono.

Toulouse-Lautrec's particularly interested in the way form is simplified into its most

essential elements in these works.

Some of these were made as part of a series, looking at the same subject but at different

times of day—or from different angles—or different seasons—and then recording what

they saw and showing them side by side to see the differences.

Where the series would be thematically linked, or tell a story, or just complement the other

prints in interesting ways.

Not only were Parisians struck by the distinctive aesthetic of Surimono prints, but also the very

gentle way that just a collection of objects beautifully depicted could say so much.

Toulouse-Lautrec, like so many of the Post-Impressionists, were hugely inspired by Japanese artists, both aesthetically

and philosophically.

So Henri decides he's graduated from Cormon and ready to strike out on his own, but

he's still living with his mom.

Yes, they had moved to Paris together, and she was right there to make sure he got into

the right studios to study with the right artists—and to make sure he wasn't getting into trouble

at night—and to give him that fat check to give his teacher each week.

But she couldn't keep Henri out of trouble long.

Montmartre had a reputation.

Firstly, it's a bohemian artist mecca, full of artistic types, who say to hell with bourgeois

morals.

We're going to live our own rules.

Of course, many of them were the children of bourgeois, rebelling against their parents,

with their parents' money.

Henri.

Though not many went as far as actually living with their mothers there.

Not only that, though, but the district was also famous for its cheap wine and nightlife,

and all sorts would leave Paris on the weekends to go out to Montmartre for fun.

Cafés and bars with dancing and debauchery till all hours made this part of town famous.

Henri's mom is like, no way, I don't want you anywhere near these places.

You're staying with me.

But eventually, the temptation is too much.

So Henri says, sorry mom, I have to go, goodbye.

I'm moving in with a friend.

So now, he's out of her watch and can pursue the bohemian lifestyle.

But he still meets his mother each week for lunch and to pick up another check from her.

Mom is disappointed, but still supportive.

A good mom.

Toulouse's new roommates take him around to all the bars and clubs, parties, cabarets.

It was like he found his home.

He felt in his element.

He was enamored by the scene and loves capturing the excitement of the nightlife.

By the age of 25, he was already a popular fixture in the neighborhood social scene,

the life of the party.

He and his friends threw elaborate dinner parties.

He loved to cook.

He would make drawings and paintings for the menu and the event.

And there would be elaborate food choices.

He was also famous for his cocktails.

One was called the earthquake that was made with absinthe and cognac.

And then he would draw your portrait on the napkin while you drank.

He could be a pretty fun guy.

He was continuously painting and drawing during this time.

And by the late 1880s, his artwork starts getting noticed by curators

and appearing in some exhibitions.

And now he's starting to make a name in the art community.

He starts getting asked to do all kinds of work.

And Henri quickly accepts a commission from a fairly new cabaret that has all of Paris talking,

the Moulin Rouge.

Part café, part nightclub, the Moulin Rouge was extravagant and exciting.

Where the wine and champagne flowed and all walks of life,

from the super rich to the working class, could hang out.

It was a symbol of everything that was modern, exciting, and new about Paris.

The iconic windmill on top was not functional.

It's actually just aesthetic to remind you of the earlier days and what used to be there.

You may have heard about the giant two-story elephant they had,

with a room inside the stomach for super-secret parties.

Well, Toulouse-Lautrec's poster for Moulin Rouge shot him to fame,

and it was a big hit for the cabaret as well.

The focus of the poster was a celebrity, a dancer named Lagulu, who you see in the middle there.

Now, something important to realize about this period is that it's really the beginning of the modern celebrity era.

Before the late 19th century, the only person you might recognize beyond your immediate community would be the king,

because his face is on the money, or his portrait was in town halls and public places.

And if you lived in a big city like Paris, there would be no way to recognize someone you didn't know personally.

But now, with the advent of photography and printmaking, you had actresses and singers and dancers

whose images, whether photos or painted portraits, are suddenly all over town,

in the newspaper, in the magazines, and on the posters.

We see the rise of the celebrity, along with that the rise of the individual,

as someone who is somehow separate or detached from society,

a big shift from the community, communal mindset most people knew throughout history.

The second thing we need to know is that this new and modern industrialized lithography process

allowed artists to have their work reproduced hundreds or thousands of times, and in color.

Lithography involves drawing with a greasy crayon or other oily medium onto a stone plate,

and using water and ink in such a way so that the ink only grabs onto the drawing,

and that's the only part that prints or transfers to the paper.

So you could draw one layer, print it, then do another stone for another layer in a different color,

line it up on that first layer and print that, then a third layer in a different color, and so on.

Lithography had been pioneered in the early 19th century,

but by the post-impressionist era, big steam-powered presses were capable of industrializing the process,

so you could print bigger, faster, and in huge numbers.

Commercial printing had arrived.

Paris becomes absolutely covered with posters by the late 19th century,

as every business now wants to create colorful posters to promote their events and products.

Every wall was plastered with posters.

They built large columns specifically for people to put posters on.

These are still around today.

People complained that every surface had become covered in posters.

Minutes after one wall was cleaned off, a poster would show up again.

Concerts, department stores, wig manufacturers, posters,

advertise all the wonders of the new age.

So with that out of the way, let's get back to Toulouse-Lautrec's Moulin Rouge poster.

And the celebrity at the center, Louise Weber, a.k.a. La Goulou, which means the glutton,

a nickname she got from drinking the leftover drinks from around the tables.

Now, before we all get on our high horse here,

who among us can say they haven't been tempted while waiting for your meal,

looking over and seeing perfect untouched leftovers on another table?

Just me?

On the poster, she's performing the can-can and is blatantly flashing us.

The crowd has been reduced to a silhouette in the background.

Very bold, flat, and graphic, with just the mixture of hats on the audience,

hinting at the mixing of cultures and status here.

This poster looked very new and fresh at the time.

The yellow lights in the background,

they're advertised that they had new electric lights.

And it's not a fancy, flowy script he used, as was common.

It's all bold lettering in capitals.

He's drawing on Japanese influence of flattening space, a limited palette,

cloisonism giving us outlines, new colors making them vibrant.

A simplified, bold, and eye-catching style that was ideal for posters

that might only be spotted from across the boulevard.

The figure you see in the foreground, in gray, is La Goulou's dancing partner,

Valentin Le Desosé, or Valentin the Boneless, because of his incredible flexibility.

Valentin was one of the few men who danced the can-can professionally.

The poster was also six and a half feet tall and four feet wide.

It's big.

Looking up at it on a pole, you would also be looking up her skirt.

The chance to see the flash of ladies' unmentionables was all part of the risque excitement

that drew you into the Moulin Rouge.

And the can-can became the star attraction of their shows and the sensation of Paris.

Well, Toulouse-Lautrec's posters are almost as popular as the Moulin Rouge.

Some were stolen off the wall before the glue even dried.

People were really excited about celebrities.

There were centuries of pent-up celebrity gossip no one knew they needed.

Posters had such a quick turnaround that they encouraged artistic innovation

in a way that painting didn't.

You could try new things because they were fast, they were cheap,

and there was a constant demand for more.

They were quickly spread to a wide audience,

so you also got a pretty immediate reaction,

and you could do all sorts of things to attract the eye,

like use tiny dots of color to make them shimmer.

The salons only happened once a year,

and only a small fraction of the population went to them.

But posters were for everyone.

It's truly public art.

Toulouse-Lautrec would go on to produce many more popular posters.

These are masterfully simplified, emphasizing the shape and silhouette,

and flattening almost everything else,

again emulating Japanese prints.

He's also feeding a burgeoning market,

where collectors are building large print collections of limited edition,

artist-made prints.

People start getting custom print cabinets installed in their home

to show off their new art.

Another thing we see from his posters is that Toulouse-Lautrec was interested in caricature,

the simplification and exaggeration of the face or the body to accentuate a likeness.

You may have had yours done at an amusement park,

where you have a huge head and a tiny body driving a car or something.

They've kind of become standardized and commodified in a weird way now.

Toulouse-Lautrec was extremely inspired by caricature and studied the way Degas did it.

Because he wasn't showing random no-names the way other poster artists did,

he was painting specific celebrities that he wanted you to recognize.

Caricature was the best and clearest way to communicate that in a quick way.

This helped bridge the gap between high art and low art.

Here in a poster for the Devon Japone, for example,

three celebrities, dancers, Jane Avril and Yvette Guibert,

and writer Edouard Dujardin, are shown.

Yvette's head is cut off by the poster, but she's recognizable as caricature

because of her exaggerated thin frame and iconic black gloves.

As fun as he was, Toulouse-Lautrec could also be a jerk and an alcoholic.

He was super sensitive to people making fun of his appearance and his height.

He tried to deflect it by mocking himself, but it always ate away at him,

and he often turned to alcohol to cope.

He drank so much, he's known to have hollowed out his cane and filled it with liquor.

He also meets Suzanne Valadon around this time, who we'll cover in a later lecture.

Suzanne is a talented painter who has been modeling

for several well-known Impressionists and post-Impressionists.

Suzanne models for Toulouse-Lautrec,

and they had a short and tumultuous relationship that ended poorly.

It wasn't just his posters that people liked.

He also made many paintings while hanging out inside the Moulin Rouge,

and other night spots in Montmartre that captured the immediacy of the moment

in a way that no other artist seemed to convey.

These paintings show a very mature and complex painting style,

from up close and intimate compositions that bring you right into the scene,

to carefully balanced figures and their interlocking silhouettes,

occasional frenzied and active mark-making,

a harmonious color palette that is both dark and muted,

but punctuated by moments of bright, saturated color.

They were stylish and attractive, and he made them look easy.

But the sophisticated color choices and compositions set Toulouse-Lautrec above his peers.

One of Toulouse-Lautrec's most famous works is simply called At the Moulin Rouge.

I've not seen this painting in person, but they say you can spot a seam on the right side

of where apparently he decided three years later that it was missing a hauntingly beautiful green-faced dancer.

Which is really what makes this painting so iconic, so I have to hand it to him on following his instincts.

The composition, with an angled bar in the foreground, the mirrored walls in the background,

and the way the faces and features of the figures are lit up,

helped create such a visceral sense of mood in a way that others who tried to capture the Paris nightlife couldn't.

Toulouse-Lautrec definitely liked to stir the pot with more than just his artistic style,

and he loved throwing himself into a controversy.

In 1892, he makes this colorful poster to promote the sensational novel The Queen of Joy,

which is all about a young femme fatale who seduces an elderly banker based on the Baron de Rothschild.

And you can guess what kind of response he stirred up by the side of a young girl kissing and on the lap of an elderly Jewish banker.

Toulouse-Lautrec also befriended and very vocally supported Oscar Wilde when he was put on trial for indecency.

And, of course, there was his association with brothels.

In fact, Toulouse-Lautrec received a commission to paint a portrait series of brothel workers from a publisher of erotic books and posters.

I mean, who else could they hire but him?

So, Toulouse-Lautrec actually moves into the brothel and lives with the women he's been hired to draw and paint.

He's taking this assignment very seriously.

Apparently, he got to know the women pretty well.

Again, not just as a client, but as a friend.

As privileged as Toulouse was, he still very much felt like an oddball outsider, mostly coming from his family,

and so he tended to share sympathies with other social outsiders.

He got to know these women on a personal level, and these paintings ended up being quite sentimental,

mostly intimate portraits of the women in their everyday lives,

which was kind of bold and respectfully ironic of him not to treat these courtesans as objects to ogle but as people.

He actually went a long way and risked quite a bit of money to humanize sex workers

and show them with empathy and sentimentality rather than the expected male gaze.

He also memorialized their individuality and their quirks, not just anonymous, interchangeable models.

So he's kind of a complex fellow, especially with this one in particular.

Imagine commissioning erotic drawings and getting this back.

It's actually a pretty funny prank if you ask me.

You probably won't be surprised to learn that after turning in works like this one,

the publisher doesn't want to work with Toulouse-Lautrec again.

This woman in front of the mirror may be the sexiest of the images he makes for this series,

but even here, she's looking at herself.

This isn't about the male gaze. This is more about the women think of themselves.

During this time, he catches syphilis, probably inevitable given the environment he's working in,

and unfortunately, things start to go downhill rather quickly for Toulouse.

He becomes increasingly paranoid, he's hallucinating, and his drinking is worse than ever.

So, finally, not knowing what else to do, his mother has him committed to a mental hospital.

After about six months, Toulouse has had enough, and he wants to get out.

But he needs to prove he's well enough to leave, so he has an idea.

He thinks, if he can make some circus pictures from memory, it will convince the doctors he's recovered.

I know it sounds fake and like the plot of a movie.

I guess things were different back then.

Whatever the reason, it actually works, and he's able to go.

Unfortunately, things do not improve for Toulouse-Lautrec.

He's depressed, he's drinking, and he's very ill both physically and emotionally.

His aristocratic family was embarrassed and offended by his lifestyle and his artwork.

His father disinherited him, and his uncle burned several of his paintings.

Those who hadn't rejected him were worried sick about him.

He was still young, just in his mid-30s.

He had a lifetime of work before him.

So, they hired a family friend to keep an eye on him.

He's still trying to paint and draw, but not very often,

and his works during this time become increasingly moody.

In 1901, he has a stroke, and died shortly after at the age of 36.

Even in his short life, he made thousands of drawings and sketches, 5,000 to be more precise.

He made over 900 paintings and 363 lithographs.

He also made theater cards, menus, invitations, and other graphic designs.

Surprisingly, only 30 of his lithographs were posters.

But it was these posters that were mass-produced and seen all around Paris.

And they continue to be reproduced on an even bigger scale today.

From candles to lunchboxes to pillows to fridge magnets,

you can see Toulouse-Lautrec's iconic designs everywhere.

In Toulouse-Lautrec's short career, he helped elevate advertising to high art.

He's almost the original pop artist preceding artists like Andy Warhol by at least 60 years.

For better or for worse, Toulouse-Lautrec is a big reason celebrity culture evolved the way it has,

and remains one of the most unique talents of the Post-Impressionist period.

11 to 20 years.

Be true.

After a long time period.

Thank you.