| Artist: | Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri de |
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|---|---|---|
| Title of Work: | At the Moulin Rouge | |
| Date of Work: | 1892 | |
| Nationality: | French | |
| Context: | The Turn of the Century | |
| Movement: | Fin-de-Siecle Decadence/Art Nouveau | |
| Medium: | Oil | |
| Subject: a dance hall that is part of the demi-monde (the half-lit world of the Parisian nighlife); the scene is garishly lit through artificial light signalling a definite break with the plein-air (open air) painting of the Impressionists. Everything goes askew here, from the tilted, oblique space to the freakishly lit face in the right foreground that comes up flat against the surface like a dehumanized mask. Seems a place for a wild, primitive ritual rather than a bourgeois (middle class), conventional setting. T-L heightens all effects to bring the drama boldly to the surface. Style: works from distortion and a sharpened perspective that creates a space of delirium as the floorboards rapidly converge in on us in the foreground. Goes against naturalism by making highly expressive use of artificial lighting and color, especially in the foregrounded, masklike face on the right. A place of tensions and aggressive clashes of complementary colors. Context: turn of the century aestheticism or fin-de-siecle decadence; T-L was an aristocrat by birth, but a bohemian and aesthete by choice. Short in height, he nonetheless lived life to the fullest, making a brothel his home for awhile. He made a cultivated study of style and had an exhibitionist streak that shows up in the many photographs he posed for (today he probably would be a performance artist). T-L understood caricature: the telling gesture and the exaggerated detail. His art is one of heightened stylization and exteriorized drama. | ||
