Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec [antikvár]

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901), descendant of ancient French aristocracy, remained crippled and a dwarf throughout his life. Although the family fortune relieved him of all financial worries, he decided to be an artist. In Paris, he was attracted to the fast, modern world of nightclub entertainment centered around Montmartre. The sites of nocturnal amusement not only became his Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec at the age of three natural habitat, they also formed his »live« studio. In the cafés, cabarets, dance halls and brothels he observed what might be called the »Theatre of Life«. He did not see this world, however, with the eyes of one of his own social standing but as a man for whom all barriers had long fallen. He painted without the arrogance of the socially superior, but also without false compassion and euphemistic idealization - like a reporter with a »photographic« brush. With subtle sensitivity and acute vision he transferred his observations onto paper or canvas, creating realistic studies of atmosphere and character of a world that had no place for bourgeois morals, in which the classy mixes with the common, the simple co-exists with the sordid. Lautrec had the gift of depicting life as it really is. He was the only one to have recorded the amusement industry of the Belle Epoque in paintings, lithographs and posters with such excellent candour and timeless validity. He died at the age of 36 in his beloved Toulouse-Lautrec working on a portrait in mother S lap. the open. e. 1890