Toulouse Lautrec, Grand-father of Pop Art and Modern Advertisement?

Toulouse Lautrec is one of the most famous French artists and one of the most reproduced in Paris. Also, it seems that the modern cinema industry appreciates him, and does not miss an opportunity to land him a secondary but key role.

Which is, as you will see, not so fair to this key artist of the 19th century of the modern and contemporary art. His character made some appearances in films like Moulin Rouge! realized by Baz Luhrmann (2001), Casino Royal (1967) or even Midnight in Paris by Woody Allen in 2011.

So, who is Toulouse-Lautrec?

Aristocratic, alcoholic dwarf, with louche habits and an unconventional life that died tragically at age thirty-six due to complications from syphilis, but without whom it is fair to say that there would be no Andy Warhol (1). 

Toulouse Lautrec created an art that was inseparable from his legendary legacy. He lived in the late 19th century in Paris, just to assist at the birth of modern printmaking and the explosion of nightlife culture. At that time, many cabarets made their opening and needed to promote their events.

Lautrec promoted Montmartre and elevated the advertising lithograph to a new level of art.

When the Moulin Rouge cabaret opened, Toulouse Lautrec was asked to produce a series of posters.
The Parisian vice has entered his life at the age of 18. Henri de Toulouse Lautrec was fully integrated to the bohemian world and spent time a lot of time in dance halls, nightclubs, and cabarets. Lautrec became famous in the entertainment industry and was often commissioned to advertise famous performers. Between sadness and entertainments, he painted dancehall performers and prostitutes.

Among all the works he painted for the various nightclubs in Paris, one of his favorite model was Louise Weber, better known as La Goulue, famous for being outrageous and because she invented one of the most renowned cabaret dancing: the French CanCan. We can fairly suppose that this great friend of Oscar Wilde did not have only artistic relations with the prostitutes whom he painted. Indeed, he had a very unfavorable physique due to a delayed growth and to diseases related to the consanguinity of his parents. It is probably in these cabarets that he got syphilis, which linked to a strong alcoholism, led him to premature death.

Lautrec is one of the main representative of the French Art Movement Post-Impressionism. It emerged as a reaction against Impressionism but actually extended the latter while trying to reject its limitation. They used vivid colors, real-life subject matter but emphasizing geometric forms, with a certain arbitrary use of color. Indeed, the impressionists had a real impact on his art, but it is his own way of representing his subjects that led him to be considered a pioneer in poster art. Asymmetric compositions, vivid colors, and strong emotions, are words that can often be used to describe the Pop Art Movement and Andy Warhol. Also, both are full of symbolism and concentrated on female character mostly, prostitutes against housewives, but both contributed to the creativity of advertising. I like to think that Toulouse Lautrec was elegant and provocative, and that he had a real humanity while depicting the decadence that made Paris famous, inspiring the Pop Art Movement and the advertising industry almost a century after his death.

Sources :

https://www.artsy.net/artist/andy-warhol

https://livesandliberties.wordpress.com/2013/08/08/the-father-of-pop-art-henri-toulouse-lautrec/ 

https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/laut/hd_laut.htm

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2004/sep/11/art

(1)“It is fair to say that without Lautrec, there would be no Andy Warhol”

Cora Michael, The Metropolitan Museum of Art