La Bohème
Bohemian Paris and the Dawn of Modern Art, La Bohème
The art world of Paris in the mid-1800s was one of revolution. It was the dawn of “art for art’s sake,” where the fundamental value of art was detached from any didactic, moral, or utilitarian purpose. Art moved away from academic traditions of the idealized and romantic to the natural and honest. Gone were the days of painting flawless figures representing Greek myths or religious scenes; new-found inspiration originated in the appreciation of the worker and the leisure and social activities of the then booming urban lifestyle.
This revolution began with the Realists: Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796-1875), Jean-François Millet (1814-1875), and Gustave Courbet (1819-1877). These artists then brought forth the unprecedented art of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901), Edouard Manet (1832-1883), Edgar Degas (1834-917), Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919), and Claude Monet (1840-1926).
Montmartre is La Bohème and La Bohème is Montmartre
As a bohemian refuge from the relentlessly modern metropolis of Paris, the Montmartre section of the city played an important role for creatives who called this hilltop neighborhood a place to live, work, and play. While the works of the earlier Impressionists tended to mirror the prosperous bourgeois lifestyle to which they were accustomed, the new generation of Post-Impressionists captured the quaint, and often racy, corners of Montmartre as well as its harsh realities, including the lives of vagabonds and prostitutes. It was this lifestyle that Henri Murger (1822-1861) wrote of in his serial novel Scènes de la vie bohème first published as a collection of short stories in 1851 then becoming Puccini’s 1896 opera with the abbreviated title of La Bohème.
Perched atop a hill to the north of Paris's city-center, Montmartre was initially a rural village dotted with vineyards and windmills. The relatively remote location and inexpensive lodgings contributed to its transformation into a primarily working-class neighborhood in the second half of the 19th century. Known for its revolutionary politics, underground culture, and liberal reputations, Montmartre served as a beacon for students, writers, musicians, and artists in the mid-to-late 1800s, replacing the Latin Quarter as the heart of the Paris’ intellectual and artistic community.
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
A synopsis of art and culture in Bohemian Paris would be incomplete without looking at Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec — the artist most associated with the era as he lived a dual life, with one part of it similar to the characters of Puccini’s La Bohéme. I say duel life because Toulouse-Lautrec was from an exceedingly wealthy, old-line aristocratic family as well as an alcoholic dwarf who lived the sordid lifestyle that filled the art he created in paintings, prints, and drawings.
His aristocratic lineage included his parents being first cousins, causing the unavoidable genetic defects that result from years of such marriages throughout his family’s history. Toulouse-Lautrec’s first serious injuries began at age13 and 14 when he broke both of his thigh bones neither of which healed properly and caused his stunted growth, reaching to just under 5 feet tall. His torso grew to adult size, but his legs stayed the size and strength of a child’s, prompting the use of a cain throughout his life. Also, his nose and lips outgrew his face causing a lisp and chronic breathing problems.
During his later teenage years, his mother left his father and Toulouse-Lautrec became his mother's escort to nightly high-society dinners and events. Each night once such formal outings came to an end, Toulouse-Lautrec ventured into Montmartre, changing from the respectable aristocrat into the outrageous, drunken, genius dwarf of the bohemian circle.
He was the consummate "life of the party" that engrossed this time period while simultaneously a prolific artist, creating over 700 paintings and 360 prints with nearly all depicting these lively times. His work was equal parts diary and chronicle of the modern life’s café-concerts, brothels, and cabarets. His critical acclaim began in his lifetime and continues today with MoMA presenting an extensive exhibition and publication of his prints spanning 2014 and 2015. Reaching heights in popular culture as well, his 150th birthday was marked by an illustration of him and his art as the Google Doodle of November 24, 2014 with the designer borrowing Toulouse-Lautrec’s iconic image of a dance troupe in a can-can line. His painterly graphic style was then, and continues to be, recognized as a near perfect match for the fluidity of that notorious dance.
Visual and Performing Arts
Toulouse-Lautrec’s career coincide with two major events that helped catapult him to fame and informed his art: the rise of the café-concert and the invention of color printmaking.
The café-concerts where places to meet to eat, drink, and see a show of live music and dancing. By 1896 there were nearly 300 in Paris. These were not "dens of immorality," instead considered "a tonic for modern life," a place to relax for all walks of life.
Toulouse-Lautrec’s days were made up of the print shop in the morning, painting in his studio in the afternoon, dinner with his mother in the evening, and post-dinner entertainment at café-concerts running all through the night.
The Moulin-Rouge
Toulouse-Lautrec was the great visual historian of his time — a terrific feat give that his career spanned only a brief ten-year period. He chronicled and advertised in equal measure Montmartre’s music halls, theaters, circuses, operas, and cafes with compositions formed by strong diagonals to represent movement and action.
The Moulin Rouge (translation, Red Windmill) was the largest of the café-concerts and the one with the reputation for having the bawdiest and most elaborate performances. The expansive dancehall catered to a mix of artists, musicians, poets, businessmen, and doctors from Paris looking for something new. As the greatest café-concert of its time, it also featured the most sought-after dancer La Goule (1866-1929, pronounced la guly, translation, the glutton). Toulouse-Lautrec’s first poster featured La Goule dancing on the Moulin Rouge’s stage and brought him instant fame. He had the ability to strip away unnecessary details resulting in striking pared-down images that enticed and entertained the viewer.
His quintessential muse was another famous Parisian dancer, Jane Avril (1868-1943). While Jane was his favored muse, he portrayed each star dancer with her recognizable attributes or features. For Jane, it was her bonnet, petticoats, and raised knee with clasped hand. Gaining such notoriety and wealth, Jane commissioned Toulouse-Lautrec to create a poster advertising the tours of her dance troupe in Paris and London.
Toulouse-Lautrec also executed several hundred paintings during his brief career and in the same style and subject matter as his posters. There are scenes of the seating area in the Moulin Rouge. Many of the faces are tinged various shades of blue, reflecting the cast created by the newly invented electric light. Unlike any other artist at this time he enjoyed a reserved table at the Moulin Rouge where he was permitted to sketch the guests and performances which then became his paintings and posters. The paintings that Toulouse Lautrec made of the dance halls of Montmartre are among his most complex works. They are unsettling paintings with severe lighting, unconventional perspective, and an ambiguous narrative. With these aspects of skewed perspective, lurid colors, and perplexing social dynamics, they are both alienating and arresting – a true embodiment of the spirit of Montmartre.
Moulin Rouge and its Dance Floor
Montmartre was a pseudo rural hill that began as a haven for the poor, criminals, prostitutes, then artists and Bohemians, and then the café-concerts opened. Think of the Montmartre district as the beyond-the-city-limits playground for all classes and occupations. Because it was not part of Paris proper, the establishments enjoyed less restrictions on alcohol and open hours. Toulouse-Lautrec's sexually suggestive images (a direct result of the loosening of censorship laws in 1881) created a sensation with the Parisian public as his works both assaulted bourgeois morals and transformed Montmartre's working-class performers into overnight celebrities.
Moulin Rouge was the most famous café-concert then and now – opening in 1889 and built to be the most extravagant, salacious, and sex-filled enterprise of all found in Montmartre. Moulin Rouge which in 2019 celebrated its 125th birthday – translates into red windmill. Moulin means windmill and references the area’s then recent past as rural farm land. Strategically located on the class divide at the middle of the hill, the Moulin Rouge offered a wide range of entertainments to attract a more upscale clientele, from clowns, acrobats, and tightrope walkers to the singers and dancers on stage, and donkey rides in its outdoor garden. Toulouse-Lautrec was so entwined with the Moulin Rouge that his monogram developed into encompassing an elephant reminiscent of the gigantic paper-mâché elephant installed in the Moulin Rouge’s outdoor garden. In lower slopes of Montmartre were found more affluent establishments of art supply vendors and several art dealers, such as renowned Paul Durand-Ruel and Goupil & Co. In essence, the class divide was the higher the slope, the lower the rent.
Dancers and Clowns and Confetti, Oh My!
Once in Montmartre, it was the singers and dancers who were the greatest attractions. Large crowds came to see celebrities such as La Goulue perform new dances such as a racy, eroticized version of the can-can. La Goulue was known for her high top knot, low cut dress in front and back, and black choker. Toulouse-Lautrec portrayed her dancing and as well as standing at the bar being romanced by a finely dressed nobleman. As you might imagine the older man with a younger, beautiful woman was exceedingly common then as throughout time and featured in Toulouse-Lautrec’s work under the title of the Queen of Pleasure, which also became a book by Victor Joze of the same name.
Throughout his life, Toulouse Lautrec developed what he called furias, or intense obsessions with certain performers. These performers would enthrall him for a single season or several years. He would return, night after night, recording the gestures, facial expressions, and postures that made each performer unique. While Jane Avril and La Goulue were his dancer furias, The Clowness, Mademoiselle Cha-u-Kao (life dates unknown) was his clown furias.
Toulouse-Lautrec rarely produced posters for consumer products but one product seemed to fit his artistic style and life – paper confetti. It was just invented and once he created its first advertising poster, its use became widespread in café-concert performances throughout Montmartre. Previously bits of colored plaster or sugar-coated bon-bons were tossed about with the unfortunate result of becoming stuck to the skin and eyes of performers and guests.
One of the few repeated male characters featured in Toulouse-Lautrec’s imagery was Aristide Bruant (1851-1925), the owner of the Mirliton café-concert. Known for his signature dress, which was a bit more like a costume, of a large-brimmed, black hat, red scarf, and black overcoat, he is instantly recognizable. He was a performer as much as the owner, insulting customers of all backgrounds. He recognized Toulouse-Lautrec’s draw and decorated the walls of the Mirliton with his signature posters.
This was also a time of avant-garde theater performances – like Salome which was banned during rehearsals in London to then debut in Paris. Toulouse-Lautrec created the program for both productions by Romain Coolus and Oscar Wilde.
Other Artists of the Era
There were definitely numerous other artists who painted and lived the life of Montmartre; however, none to the extent of Toulouse-Lautrec. Edgar Degas’ (1834-1917) often depicted opera singers in similar up-lighting and bright costumes, but much less sexualized. And while Toulouse-Lautrec’s medium of choice and superior use was lithography, Degas’ was pastel on paper.
Some of Pierre-Auguste Renoir's (1841-1919) most famous paintings feature people dancing. While titled Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette, few would associate it with the sultry world of Montmartre. It is a pleasant scene of dancing outside on Sunday afternoon lacking in any sexually-charged imagery or energizing line. It is also at a different Moulin, the Le Moulin de la Galette, named for the bread pastry produced by the mill attached to the windmill.
Moulin Rouge’s dance floor of local stars performing the latest crazes, also inspired Georges Seurat (1859-1891) whose signature technique lent itself well to something so modern. His innovative pointillist technique expresses the modernity of the subject.
Toulouse-Lautrec’s Legacy
Henri Toulouse-Lautrec died at 36 in mother's arms from his decadent life of alcohol and absinthe. In his short ten-year career he created approximately 700 paintings, 367 posters, and 5,000 drawings all of his world and that of modern Paris. The legend of this great artist is perpetually honored at the Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec Museum in the town of Albi in souther France. His family came from Albi so upon his untimely death, his ever-devoted mother and somewhat absent father acquired and dedicated a portion of the city’s 13th-century palace to house a museum devoted to his work and forever honoring Albi’s favorite son.
Have any questions or comments about Toulouse Lautrec, bohemian Paris, or any part of western art history, contact me, and let’s talk all things art.
Yours in art & forever an art geek,
Marisa
Embrace Art. Fear No Art. Ars Longa, Vita Brevis. #arthistorianforhire #curatorforhire #artgeek
