This article has not been rated yet. Be the first person to rate this article. When Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa swapped his hometown-commune in south-west France for the glare and dazzle of the City of Light he broke free from the stiff constraints of his aristocratic upbringing and embraced a liberated lifestyle filled with, and indeed fuelled by, art and entertainment.
Montmartre, where he lived, worked and played, catered to his every need. Every night Lautrec frequented its pleasure palaces, drinking and sketching in the likes of the Moulin Rouge and Chat Noir, and after forging close friendships there with various stars of the stage he received commissions to design posters that advertised venues and promoted performers.
Long after their final curtain, it is not the performers who live on but the man who painted them and enhanced their careers. Lautrec died young in , aged only thirty-six, but he left behind a wealth of stunning work β the most significant of which was his posters. Immediately we find ourselves invited to compare and contrast.
By then the artist was at the height of his career. His poster is colourful but lacks originality: his doll-like dancers are blandly generic and safely idealised.
Lautrec, on the other hand, was a relatively unknown artist, and this was his first publicity poster. His bold, unconventional and consequently more eye-catching design conveyed the Moulin Rouge as it really was β a place that hovered between the decent and the decadent.
