Artist Toulouse Lautrec paintings. Henri de Toulouse Lautrec, paintings and creativity, the glitz and poverty of Parisian nightlife

He could have been a brilliant aristocrat, but he became an ugly cripple. He could have shone at balls and won the hearts of socialites, but he became a regular at the Moulin Rouge and a seducer of its inhabitants.

Henri Toulouse de Lautrec, whose paintings impress with their frankness and realism, is the strangest and most unfortunate post-impressionist artist.

Childhood

The future famous artist was born in the late autumn of 1864 on the family noble estate of Albi, a picturesque town in the south of France. Delightful virgin nature surrounded the young aristocrat from the cradle, since the village was located on the hills of the beautiful Tarn River.

Henri's mother, Adele de Seleyrand, was a meek and at the same time strong personality, she steadfastly endured the hardships of fate and was good friend for his only son.

The father, Alphonse de Toulouse, was an eccentric and pretentious person, often moved from place to place, cheated on his wife and loved to amaze secular society with extravagant antics.

The little heir's parents divorced when he was four years old, due to a terrible tragedy that darkened the life of the entire family - death youngest son.

After the separation of his father and mother, little Henri moved several times from one estate to another, and at the age of six he settled with his mother in Paris.

All this time, the baby received an education worthy of an aristocrat: he learned horse riding, dancing and languages.

Personal tragedy

As a teenager, Toulouse-Lautrec, whose paintings would soon become famous and popular, had little interest in painting. He loved to hunt, dance at balls, and fence. However, at the age of thirteen everything ended.

Getting up from his chair, young Henri unsuccessfully twisted his leg and broke the femoral neck on his right leg. A year later, he inadvertently falls into a ditch and receives a fracture of the femoral neck of his left leg. After this, the irreparable happens.

The bones of the heir of a noble family stop growing! Perhaps this was due to incest, which was so common in those years (Henri’s parents were cousins and sister). Or the cause was an old birth illness, which manifests itself quite rarely (the young man’s maternal aunt was a dwarf). Be that as it may, the growth of the young aristocrat’s lower limbs stopped.

A couple of years later, the handsome and charming Henri turned into a dwarf with short legs and a large body. His figure, no more than one and a half meters long, was a disproportionate caricature.

Consequences

Naturally, a young man with such appearance should have forgotten about shining in secular society and a military career, there was no need to remember about balls and masquerades, dancing and hunting. Because of this, the unfortunate patient begins to feel embarrassed among his beautiful, cheerful peers and feel like an ugly outcast.

The mother felt sorry for her disadvantaged son and supported him in everything. But the father, seeing how the only heir did not live up to his expectations, behaved sternly and sometimes harshly with his son. Disillusioned with his own life and his hypocritical environment, the unhappy young man discovered the world of art.

Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, whose paintings will give him the meaning and happiness of life, becomes an artist.

Education

At first, the aspiring painter becomes a student of Princeto, a deaf-mute animal painter. Despite the considerable difference in age, these two people, so cruelly deprived of fate, found mutual language and became friends.

Training with Prensto was not in vain for young talent. Toulouse-Lautrec, whose paintings were initially made unprofessionally, in an amateurish manner, mastered the skill of conveying movement on canvas.

The next stage of the aspiring artist’s self-education was a visit to the workshop of Bonn and Cormon, painters of the academic (or classical) movement. They help young Henri get better at drawing small details, combining colors correctly, and paying attention to angles and lighting.

Finding yourself

But Lautrec was not a stickler for strict adherence to rules. He was inspired by the paintings of the Impressionists. Their bold lines and bright colors delighted and touched the sensitive imagination young man.

At the same time, the aspiring artist was proud and ambitious. He wanted to create his own style of painting, so that, looking at his canvases, people would immediately note: this is the hand of the legendary Lautrain!

And Henri achieved this. The paintings of the artist Toulouse-Lautrec become characteristic and specific; the talented and extraordinary style of the master is always visible in them.

Poster artist

Henri began his development as a professional artist by drawing posters and posters. Toulouse-Lautrec, whose paintings were already enjoying some popularity, was invited as a permanent artist at the Moulin Rouge (the world famous cabaret of Montmartre).

There were no strict rules or hard boundaries here. It was necessary to draw in such a way that people would want to attend the performance, and Henri achieved this goal better than others.

He painted without idealization or striving for perfection. He took pleasure in depicting flaws and shortcomings. Such bright, living realism appealed to the voluptuous public.

A poster depicting dancing girls with raised skirts or a cabaret diva against the backdrop of lustful men - everything was done harmoniously, lively and alluring.

"At the Moulin Rouge"

Toulouse-Lautrec's painting “At the Moulin Rouge” amazes with its lively images and dynamic action. She's bright in small details, conveys the characters and preferences of the characters depicted. There is the artist himself, his beloved dancer La Goulue, and other frequent regulars of frivolous Montmartre.

Toulouse-Lautrec, whose paintings were striking in their frankness and attracted the eye with their bright individual execution, painted not only for brothels. He collaborated with various magazines, decorated ceramics and stained glass, and exhibited his work at famous European and American art exhibitions. His paintings sold well and enjoyed worldwide recognition.

Personal life

As a regular client of brothels, Toulouse-Lautrec was mired in alcoholism and immorality. He was constantly surrounded by prostitutes and perverts, with them he forgot about his ugliness and felt like an ordinary person.

At twenty-two, thanks to the help and support of his mother, who saw her son as a hunted, wounded child, Henri received own house and a workshop. There he created his masterpieces, there he got drunk and caroused.

Toulouse-Lautrec loved to receive guests. He loved to impress them with his culinary skills, personally preparing delicious, expensive dishes and cocktails of his own invention. They say that it was he who first mixed cognac with absinthe, thereby giving the name to the exciting drink “Earthquake”.

However, such a life could not but affect Henri’s health. Abusing alcohol, he suffered from “delirium tremens” several times and was even treated in an institution for the insane.

The venereal disease, which Toulouse-Lautrec picked up in one of the brothels, undermined his vitality with incredible cruelty.

The gifted artist died in the family castle, in the arms of his dearly loving mother, at the age of thirty-six, leaving behind about a thousand paintings and watercolors, almost four hundred engravings and posters and more than five thousand drawings.

Let's focus on some of his works.

Toulouse-Lautrec, description of the painting “The Laundress”

Henri painted his famous painting “The Washerwoman” at the age of twenty-three, when he was still little familiar with the life of the bohemian bottom. Although Toulouse-Lautrec’s paintings (photos of some of them are posted in this article) wrote mainly about the nightlife of Paris, among his creations there are many works and sketches on other topics. For example, he liked to depict women doing hard physical labor. A striking example is the painting “Laundress”.

It depicts a beautiful but tired girl. She is red-haired and beautifully built, full of strength and health. Next to her there are no objects of her labor - wet linen and vats of water. Therefore, all eyes are directed only at her.

The image of a young worker is placed in the center of the canvas, it is illuminated with bright sunlight, a wave of feminine strength and self-confidence, calmness and at the same time terrible daily exhaustion emanates from him.

The best thing Toulouse-Lautrec wrote

The paintings (you are already familiar with the names of some of them) gave the artist self-confidence and were his joy.

When talking about other paintings by the post-impressionist, you need to pay attention to the following portraits:

Over the twenty years of his creative work, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec left a huge number of paintings that have enriched the fine arts of the whole world. If he had not died so early, he cultural heritage, would probably reach an incredible level.

Only next to clowns, acrobats, dancers and prostitutes did Henri de Toulouse feel like he belonged. Contemporaries did not accept the artist’s work. Having natural talent and not being constrained by funds, Toulouse-Lautrec could get a brilliant art education. However, having mastered the basics of painting from modern masters, he began to develop his own innovative aesthetics, far from academicism. Refusal of naturalism and detail (no folds on clothes, carefully drawn hairs), an emphasized, caricature-like, grotesque manner of conveying the facial features and plasticity of the characters, an abundance of movement and vivid emotions - these are the main characteristics of his style.

On November 24, 1864, in the city of Albi, in the ancient family castle of the Counts of Toulouse Lautrec, a boy was born, who was named Henri de Toulouse - Lautrec. Lautrec's mother, née Tapier de Seleyrand, Countess Adele, and Count Alphonse de Toulouse - Lautrec - Monfat, the artist's father, belonged to the highest circles of the aristocracy in France. The parents treated little Henri with particular care; in him they saw the successor of the family, the heir to one of the most significant families in the country. Count Alphonse imagined how his son would accompany him on horseback rides around the count's grounds and on falconry trips. WITH early age the father taught the boy horse riding and hunting terminology, introduced him to his favorites - the stallion Usurper and the mare Volga. Henri grew up as a sweet, charming child, bringing joy to his loved ones. With the light hand of one of Lautrec Jr.’s grandmothers, the family called “ Little Treasure" Cheerful, lively, attentive and inquisitive, with lively dark eyes, he delighted everyone who saw him. At three years old, he required a pen to sign his name. They objected to him that he could not write. “Well, let it be,” Henri replied, “I’ll draw a bull.”

Childhood is considered happy times In human life. But this happiness was overshadowed by drama or even tragedy for Henri. Born with poor health, he was often sick, grew slowly, and until the age of five his fontanel did not heal. The Countess was worried about her boy and blamed herself first of all for his illnesses: after all, her husband was her cousin, and children in related marriages are often born unhealthy. When her second son, Richard, born two and a half years after Henri, died at just over eleven months old, Adele was finally convinced that her marriage was a mistake. And it’s not just the children’s illnesses - the pious woman gave her husband a lot, but over time they family life began to be filled with misunderstanding, bitterness and disunity. For a long time, Adele tried to put up with the count’s rudeness and betrayals, with his quirks and whims, but in August 1868 there was a final break - she stopped considering Alphonse her husband. In a letter to her sister, she said that she now intended to treat him only as a cousin. However, they still portrayed spouses and were polite to each other in public - after all, they had a son, and in addition, it was necessary to observe the rules of decency accepted in society. But from then on, all her attention, all her love was given to Henri.

Count Alphonse loved aristocratic entertainment - hunting, horse riding, racing - and passed on to his son a love of horses and dogs.

The count was also interested in art and often came with his little son to the studio of his friend, the artist Rene Princesteau, with whom Henri soon became friends. Princeto was not only an animal painter, he was a dexterous horseman, a lover of hound hunting and racing.

With great knowledge of the matter, he painted horses, dogs, hunting scenes, and from under his brush came real portraits of animals - he could convey their character, habits, grace. Soon the younger Lautrec began to come alone to his father’s friend. He could spend hours admiring how Princeteau created his paintings, and then he himself took a pencil and on a sheet of paper tried to leave a clearly visible and bright trace of everything that caught his eye: dogs, horses, birds. He was good at it, and Princeteau couldn't help but admit that the boy definitely had talent.

In Paris, where the Lautrec family moved in 1872, Henri was assigned to the Lyceum. It grows very slowly; the smallest among his peers, receives the nickname “Baby”. The margins of his notebooks were filled with drawings much faster than the pages with letters and numbers.

Often missing classes due to constant illness, Henri nevertheless studied with honors. After several years of study, Countess Adele was rightfully proud of her boy - he not only drew breathtakingly, but was also recognized as one of the best students of his lyceum. She rejoiced at her son’s success, but was increasingly worried about his health: doctors suspected he had bone tuberculosis - Henri was already ten years old, and he was still very small. The wall, against which all the cousins ​​in their estate noted their height in gradations and which Little Treasure tried to avoid, the servants called among themselves “ wailing wall».

At the end of May 1878, an unforeseen misfortune happened to Henri. He was sitting in the kitchen on a low chair, and when he tried to stand up, leaning awkwardly on his stick, without the help of which he no longer had the strength to move, he fell and broke the femoral neck of his left leg. And having barely recovered from a previous serious injury, a little over a year later, Henri stumbled while walking and broke the neck of his right hip... The parents, full of despair, did not lose hope for Henri’s recovery. But the boy did not allow tears, did not complain - on the contrary, he tried to cheer up those around him. The best and widely known doctors came to Henri, and he was taken to the most expensive resort places. Soon the illness dormant in his body made itself felt in full force. Some doctors classified Lautrec's disease as a group of polyepiphyseal dysplasias. According to others, the reason for Henri's short stature was osteopetrosis (painful thickening of the bone), which occurs in a mild form.

His limbs stopped growing completely, only his head and body became disproportionately huge in relation to his short legs and arms.

The figure on “childish legs” with “childish hands” looked very ridiculous. The charming child turned into a real freak. Henri tried to look in the mirror as little as possible - after all, apart from his large, searingly black eyes, there was nothing attractive left in his appearance. The nose became thick, the protruding lower lip hung over the sloping chin, and the hands of the short arms grew disproportionately huge. And the words that the deformed mouth uttered were distorted by a lisp, sounds jumped one after another, he swallowed syllables and, while talking, splashed with saliva. Such tongue-tiedness, coupled with the existing defect of the musculoskeletal system, did not at all contribute to the development of Henri’s spiritual harmony. Fearing the ridicule of others, Lautrec I learned to make fun of myself and my own ugly body, without waiting for others to start making fun and ridicule. This amazing and courageous man used this self-defense technique, and this technique worked. When people met Lautrec for the first time, they laughed not at him, but at his witticisms, and when they got to know Henri better, they certainly fell under his charm.

Lautrec understood that fate, having deprived him of health and external attractiveness, endowed him with extraordinary and original drawing abilities. But to become a worthy artist, you had to study. The painter Leon Bonnat was then very famous in Paris, and Toulouse-Lautrec signed up for courses with him. Lautrec believes all the teacher’s comments and tries to destroy everything original in himself. Only in the first days did his classmates whisper sarcastically and laugh at the clumsy Henri - soon no one attached any importance to his ugliness. He was friendly, witty, cheerful, and incredibly talented. After Bonna dismissed all his students, he moved on to Cormon, who painted large canvases on prehistoric subjects. The students loved him, he was a good teacher. From Cormon, Lautrec learned the secrets of painting and graphics, but he did not like his condescension, he was merciless to himself.

Henri's mother completely shared her son's interests and admired him, but his father, Count Alphonse, did not at all like what the heir to the family was doing.

Drawing, he believed, could be one of the hobbies of an aristocrat, but it should not become the main business of his life. The count demanded that his son sign the paintings with a pseudonym. Henri became more and more alien even to the family in which he grew up and was brought up; he called himself “a withered branch” family tree. Alphonse de Toulouse - Lautrec Monfat fully confirmed this, giving the right of primogeniture, which was supposed to be inherited by his son, to his younger sister Alike. Henri began to sign paintings with an anagram of his last name - Treklo.

In the summer of 1882, on the way to the south, where the Countess was still taking her son for treatment, they stopped at their estate in Albi. There's Henri in last time noted his height at the “Weeping Wall”: one meter and fifty-two centimeters. He was almost eighteen years old - an age when most young men cannot think about anything other than the opposite sex. In this, Lautrec differed little from his peers - in addition to an ugly body, ruthless Nature endowed him with a gentle, sensitive soul and a powerful masculine temperament. He first fell in love as a child - with his cousin Jeanne d'Armagnac. Henri lay with a broken leg and waited for the girl to come to visit him. As he grew older, Lautrec learned the sensual side of love. His first woman was Marie Charlet - a young, thin, youthful model, completely innocent in appearance and depraved in her soul. She was brought to Henri by a friend from the workshop, the Norman Charles - Edouard Lucas, who believed that Lautrec would be cured of his painful complexes when he knew a woman. Marie came to the artist several times, finding the connection with him piquant. But Henri soon refused her services - this “animal passion” was too far from his ideas about love. However, the relationship with the young model showed how strong his temperament was, and memories of sensual pleasures did not allow Lautrec, as before, to spend lonely evenings at work. Realizing that a worthy girl from a decent society was unlikely to reciprocate his feelings, he went to Montmartre - to prostitutes, cafe singers and dancers. Among his new hobby - street life in Montmartre, Henri did not feel like a cripple; life opened up to him from a new side.

Montmartre in the mid-1880s... All of Paris flocked here for entertainment. The halls of cafes and restaurants, cabarets and theaters were quickly filled with a motley audience and the holiday began... Here their kings and queens, their rulers of thoughts, ruled. Among them, the first place was occupied by the coupletist Bruan, the owner of the restaurant " Elise – Montmartre" The recognized queen of Montmartre in those days was La Goulue - “The Glutton” - that’s how sixteen-year-old Alsatian Louise Weber was nicknamed for her crazy passion for food.

He sat down at a table, ordered a drink, and then took out his sketchbook with pencils and, constantly watching the frantic dance of the Alsatian, he drew, trying to catch every movement of her body, every change in the expression of her face. Her fresh, wrinkle-free skin, sparkling eyes, sharp nose, her legs, which she threw high in the dance, foaming the lace of her skirts, the shamelessness with which she twirled her butt, expressing with her whole being a voluptuous outburst of passion - Henri captured all this in his drawings. Next to La Goulue was her indispensable partner Valentin, whom the public nicknamed Boneless. The movements of this couple were so erotic and desirable that they could not help but turn on the audience, and every performance of La Goulue and Valentin Beskostny was accompanied by wild applause.

In 1884, Henri came from Paris to visit his “poor holy mother,” as the artist called her. After a few weeks, which he spent with his parents, Lautrec returned to the capital completely happy - his father agreed to give him money to buy his own workshop in Montmartre. He is a full-fledged inhabitant of Paris. For Lautrec Montmartre became a hospitable home, and its inhabitants - Montmartre actresses and singers, dancers, prostitutes and drunkards became his favorite young models, reinterpreted heroines of the bright, most impressive drawings, lithographs, posters, advertising posters and paintings. It was they, despised by society, who gave him the tenderness, affection and warmth that they so generously gave him and which he so voluptuously craved. Many of Lautrec’s works depict scenes in brothels, their inhabitants, for whom he, a hereditary aristocrat, felt sympathy and understood like no one else. After all, this “hunchbacked Don Juan,” like them, was an outcast.

In 1886, Lautrec met Van Gogh in Cormon's studio and painted his portrait in the manner of a new friend.

A revolt against the teacher is brewing in the workshop. Lautrec joins his friends Anquetin, Bernard and Van Gogh. Now he defends his identity. He organizes an exhibition of his drawings at Mirliton, some of them illustrate Bruant’s songs. Vincent decides to organize an exhibition of friends in a working restaurant. However, ordinary people did not accept innovative painting. And in 1888, Lautrec received an invitation to take part in the G20 exhibition in Brussels. Among the group members are Signac, Whistler, Anquetin. Lautrec is present at the opening day. Defending Van Gogh, he challenges the artist de Groux, who insulted him, to a duel; the duel was averted. Critics took notice of Lautrec's work, noting his harsh drawing and wicked wit.

Gradually, Montmartre invents new things, never ceasing to surprise. New establishments are appearing. In 1889, Joseph Oller announced the opening of the Moulin Rouge cabaret.

On Boulevard Clichy the wings of the red cabaret mill began to spin. In the evenings, the noisy hall of the entertainment establishment, one wall of which was completely mirrored to create the illusion of space, was crowded - all of Paris gathered here to look at the brilliant Valentin and La Goulue, lured away by the director. Moulin rouge" from "Elise". From that evening, Toulouse-Lautrec became a frequent visitor to this place. Everything that was so attractive and attractive in “Eliza” and “Moulin de la Galette” was now concentrated in Oller’s cabaret. Henri spent all his evenings at the Moulin Rouge, surrounded by his friends, drawing and constantly making wisecracks and jokes, so that someone who happened to enter the cabaret could assume that this wonderful freak was one of the local attractions.

Encouraged by his success, Lautrec painted twenty canvases a year. His constant themes are prostitutes, cabaret dancers, portraits of friends. He broke with naturalism, he was not able to embellish reality, in his grotesque and irony there is pain, awareness of the tragic side of life. In the large canvas "Dance in" Moulin rouge“he writes the audience of the famous cabaret, his friends at the table, the famous dancer Valentin Beskostny, performing a square dance together with one of the dancers. They said about the artist that he paints “the sorrow of laughter and the hell of fun.”

In January 1891, before the start of the new season, Oller ordered Toulouse-Lautrec a poster advertising the Moulin Rouge. Of course, it should feature the attention-grabbing cabaret stars - Valentin and La Goulue "in the midst of a sparkling quadrille."

Advertising posters that came out at the end of September and had big success, were posted all over Paris. Fiacres (hire carriages) with posters taped to them drove around the city. This poster is one of classical works French Post-Impressionism. In the center of the poster is La Goulue, depicted in profile and dancing in front of the audience. He glorified both the Moulin Rouge and, even more, the artist.

Montmartre occupied a special, and rather the most important, place in the life of Toulouse - Lautrec. Here he improves and draws subjects for his paintings, here he feels light and free, here he finds respect and love. The inhabitants of the salon simply adored their regular and showered him with their love. After La Goulue, the busty beauty Rose with bright red hair reigned in his heart, then there were other beauties - “little Henri” in Montmartre, no one could resist her love caresses. In Parisian dating houses he is always warmly and friendly received, here he feels calm, paints local models in an intimate setting, not intended for prying eyes: sleeping, half-dressed, changing clothes, at the toilet - with combs and basins, stockings and towels, cooking series of paintings and lithographs " They» (« Elles»).

For some time he even lived in brothels. He did not hide where his home was, and, as if proud of it, he easily gave his address and laughed when it shocked someone. On the Rue Moulin, Lautrec was especially inspired by the exclusive and sophisticated interior. Even quite respectable ladies, mostly foreigners, came here to admire the decoration of the rooms. And everyone in Paris was talking about the incredible beauty of the inhabitants of this “temple of love.”

The owner of the establishment, Madame Baron, made sure that Lautrec's workshop was comfortable, and then persuaded Toulouse-Lautrec to decorate the walls of the brothel with paintings he painted. Her charges, young and not so young, quenched his hunger for passion, and they did it with great willingness and tenderness, and yet “ no money can buy this delicacy", he said. On Sundays, Monsieur Henri played a game of dice, and the winner had the honor of spending time with the artist. And when the wards of Madame Baron's temptresses of love had a weekend, Lautrec followed the tradition, which he himself had invented, of organizing evenings in the brothel, where the girls, dressed in transparent and very lightly woven clothes, waltzed in a noble manner with each other to the music of a mechanical piano. Observing the life of the brothel, Lautrec was amazed at how these weak and unfortunate creatures, caught in the trap of depravity and immoral corruption of everything and everyone, tried to maintain a tense mask on themselves.

In 1892, Lautrec exhibited nine paintings in Brussels with the Group of Twenty. He is appointed a member of the committee for hanging paintings at the Independents. The public calls his art shameless, artists see him as a successor to Degas. Lautrec often turned the superiority of his models into ugliness; he was never noble and condescending towards his models. In 1894, one of his main models was the then famous cafe singer Yvette Guilbert, who once called him a “genius of deformation.” He drew Yvette many times. The artist also depicted the singer on the lid of a ceramic tea table. He tries different techniques, including stained glass. Suddenly he becomes interested in racing cyclists and paints a large canvas "".

Yvette Guilbert simply captivated him. When Lautrec first saw Guilbert on stage, he wanted to write a poster for the singer and, having done so, sent her a drawing. Yvette knew that she had repulsive beauty, but she did not suffer from this at all, she was flirtatious and enjoyed good success with men and the public. Lautrec's poster somewhat discouraged her - she saw herself completely different, not so ugly, but Guilbert understood that the sketch was a tribute to the sympathy and respect of the extraordinary artist. She did not order a poster for Henri, although the artist himself, whom she had never seen before, only heard about him, interested her. “We will return to this topic, but, for God’s sake, don’t make me look so scary!” - she wrote to him. But Lautrec was not used to retreating so easily - he decided to release an album of lithographs dedicated to the singer. One day he paid her a visit - then Yvette saw him for the first time. His ugliness stunned her at first, but when she looked into his expressive black eyes, Guilbert was captivated. Yvette forever remembered that day: she invited him to have lunch together, they talked a lot, and soon she was completely under the power of Henri’s charm... This meeting was followed by others, he came to her and drew, drew... The sessions were stormy, the artist and his model often quarreled - it was as if he took fabulous pleasure in angering her.

Album « Yvette Guilbert"(sixteen lithographs) was published in 1894. The singer, and part-time model of Lautrec, reacted approvingly to him, but then her friends convinced her that she looked disgusting there and that the artist should be punished in court for the offender for humiliated dignity and public insult.

However, numerous laudatory responses began to appear in the newspaper press, and Yvette had to come to terms with her merciless portrait painter. Perhaps now no one would remember that such a singer, Yvette Guilbert, sang in Montmartre in Paris at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century, but history has preserved the memory of her thanks to him, a genius freak Henri Toulouse - Lautrec.

He also glorified the dancer Jeanne Avril, whom he met in the restaurant " Jardin de Paris" Unlike the quarrelsome, harsh La Goulue, Zhana was soft, feminine, and “intelligent.” This illegitimate daughter of a demi-monde and an Italian aristocrat suffered as a child from her mother, a rude, perverted and unbalanced woman who took out all her failures on her daughter. One day, unable to bear the humiliation and beatings, Zhana ran away from home. Music and dance became her consolation. She never sold herself and started affairs only with those who could awaken warm feelings in her. Zhana understood art, was distinguished by sophistication of manners, nobility and some kind of spirituality. According to Henri, she was “like a teacher.” In his drawings, Lautrec managed to convey her, as one of his friends put it, “the charm of depraved virginity.” Jeanne, who highly appreciated Lautrec's talent, willingly posed for the artist and sometimes happily played the role of hostess in his workshop.

Gradually, Toulouse-Lautrec's works were printed and sold throughout the country. The artist's works were exhibited at large exhibitions in France, Brussels and London. He became so famous that counterfeits of Lautrec began to appear on the markets, and this meant success.

But fame did not change the artist’s lifestyle in any way: he worked just as hard and had just as much fun, never missing costume balls, theater premieres, or parties with his Montmartre friends. Lautrec lived as if he was afraid of missing something, of not being able to do something in this life - excitedly, feverishly, joyfully. "Life is Beautiful!" was one of his favorite exclamations. And only close friends knew what bitterness was hidden behind these actions and words. He also drank - a lot, but only very good and expensive drinks. He was convinced that high quality alcohol could not cause serious harm. Lautrec loved to mix different drinks, creating an extraordinary bouquet. He was the first in France to make cocktails and received incredible pleasure listening to the praise of his guests, who enthusiastically tried the new drinks. Whoever visited him then, and all his guests knew, Lautrec was supposed to drink. His fellow students in Cormon's workshop Anquetin and Bernard, and the young Van Gogh, who introduced him to Japanese art, and the insidious Valadon, an artist and model of Renoir, who seemed to be playing some kind of subtle game with Lautrec - she appeared in his life and then disappeared. ...

After some time, he no longer needed expensive gourmet liqueurs and cognacs - Lautrec learned to make do with simple, cheap wine from a nearby shop. He drank more and more, and worked less and less, and if earlier he made more than a hundred paintings a year, then in 1897 he painted only fifteen canvases. It seemed to friends that heavy drinking was destroying Lautrec as an artist. But he has not yet lost the ability to create masterpieces: these are portrait of Oscar Wilde 1896

Friends tried to distract him from his alcohol addiction, taking him to England, Holland, Spain, but he, having had his fill of old art, admiring the paintings of Bruegel and Cranach, Van Eyck and Memling, El Greco, Goya and Velazquez, returned home and resumed his former life. Henri became capricious, intolerant, and sometimes simply unbearable. Inexplicable outbursts of anger, stupid antics, unjustified violence... His already poor health was undermined by alcoholism and syphilis, which Red Rose “awarded” him a long time ago.

Lautrec began to suffer from insomnia, as a result of which - against the backdrop of endless drunkenness - he developed frightening hallucinations and delusions of persecution. His behavior became increasingly inappropriate, and he was increasingly subject to bouts of insanity. In the summer of 1897, he shot at imaginary spiders with a revolver; in the fall of 1898, it seemed to him that police were chasing him on the street, and he hid from them with friends.

In 1899, “with a terrible attack of delirium tremens,” Lautrec’s mother admitted him to Dr. Semelen’s mental hospital in Neuilly. Coming out of there after several months of treatment, he tried his best to work, but something seemed to break in him.

In mid-April, Lautrec returned to Paris. The friends were shocked when they saw Henri. “How he has changed! - they said. “Only a shadow remains of him!” Lautrec barely moved, moving his legs with difficulty. It was clear that he was forcing himself to live. But sometimes it seemed that faith in the future regained hope in him. He was especially pleased with the news that several of his paintings were sold at auction in Drouot, and for a lot of money. Inspired by this event, Henri again felt a strong desire to draw. But - the last works seemed not to be his... In three months, Lautrec dismantled everything that had accumulated in his workshop over the years of work, finished some canvases, put his signatures on what seemed to him a success... Before leaving, he was going to carry out that summer in Arashon and Tossa, places familiar to him from childhood, on the seashore - Henri brought perfect order to the workshop, as if he knew that he would not be destined to return there again.

At the Orleans station he was seen off by old friends. Both they and Lautrec himself understood that this was probably their last meeting.

The sea air could not heal Henri. The doctors reported that he had consumption, and in mid-August Lautrec suffered a stroke. He was losing weight, deaf, and had difficulty moving due to developing paralysis. Arriving at the seriously ill Lautrec, Countess Adele transported her son to the family castle in Malrome. In this mansion, surrounded by the care and love of his mother, Henri seemed to have returned to huge world childhood, joys, hopes. He even tried to start drawing again, but his fingers no longer obeyed the call of his heart and could not hold the brush. Over time, paralysis shackled his entire unfortunate body; Lautrec could no longer even eat by himself. There was always someone at his bedside: friends, mother or old nanny. His father, Count Alphonse, also visited, but never recognized his son as an artist. When he entered the room, Henri 1901

Natural growing pains - “hopeless confusion in narcissism” - successfully developed in Toulouse-Lautrec into strong confidence in his success on the foundation of his talent as a draftsman. He was not afraid of any topic, any order, any size and any speed. Matisse's expression and kinematics of the body turned out to be the main arguments in the artist's paintings. The courage of genetic talents was confirmed by the artistic discoveries that followed one after another of more and more new possibilities for shocking the public, which was easier and more successful to organize by leading the public to a dead end and using vulgarities. The French made vice a delicacy. High society, who bought creativity, accepted the artistic riotousness of bohemia as the norm of playfulness, affirming status real life. Lautrec, on the other hand, expresses the organic freedom of pose, bringing its expressiveness to the point of shocking. The curtain fell. Life Henri de Toulouse – Lautrec – Monfat ended on the morning of September 9, 1901, at the age of thirty-seven, like Van Gogh. He was buried near Malrome in the cemetery of Saint André du Bois. Later, the Countess ordered the remains of her son to be transferred to Werdle.

Gradually, the largest museums in the world began to acquire the works of Toulouse-Lautrec - Toulouse-Lautrec became a classic. Despite this, Count Alphonse still did not want to admit that his son was talented artist. He wrote to Henri’s childhood friend, Maurice Juayan, who was working on creating a house - the Lautrec Museum in Albi: “Only because the artist is no longer alive, even if it is my son, I cannot admire his clumsy work.” And only in his suicide letter, in December 1912, the count admitted to Maurice: “You believed in his talent more than I did, and you turned out to be right...”.

The great artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, a writer of everyday life in Paris and a regular at the Moulin Rouge, made probably the strangest somersault in the history of painting: he preferred the life of a noble rich man to the existence of a bohemian outcast and alcoholic. Lautrec was one of the most cheerful singers of vice, since his inspiration always had only three main sources and three components: brothels, Night Paris and, of course, alcohol.

Lautrec grew up in a family of classic aristocratic degenerates: his ancestors participated in the Crusades, and his parents were cousins. Papa Lautrec was a complete alcoholic eccentric: at lunchtime he had the habit of going out in a blanket and tutu. Henri himself was a very picturesque example of aristocratic degeneration. Due to a hereditary disease, the bones of his legs stopped growing after childhood injuries; as a result, Henri’s full torso was crowned with Lilliputian legs. His height barely exceeded 150 centimeters. His head was disproportionately large, and his lips were thick and turned out.

At the age of 18, Lautrec first experienced the taste of alcohol, the sensation of which he for some reason compared to “the taste of a peacock’s tail in the mouth.” Lautrec soon became a living mascot of the entertainment establishments of Paris. He practically lived in the brothels of Montmartre. Relationships between pimps and whores, drunken outrages of the rich, sexually transmitted diseases, the aging bodies of dancers, vulgar makeup - this is what fed the artist’s talent. Lautrec himself was no stranger: the young prostitute Marie Charlet once told Montmartre about the unprecedented size of the artist’s manhood, and Toulouse himself jokingly called himself “a coffee pot with a huge nose.” He drank the “coffee pot” all night long, then got up early and worked hard, after which he again began to wander around the taverns and drink cognac and absinthe.

Gradually, delirium tremens and syphilis took their toll: Lautrec painted less and less, and drank more and more, turning from a cheerful jester into an evil dwarf. As a result, by the age of 37 he was struck by paralysis, after which the artist died almost immediately - as befits an aristocrat, in his family castle. Drunken dad Lautrec put a tragicomic end to the dissolute life of the brilliant artist: considering that the carriage with the coffin in which Henri lay was moving too slowly, he spurred the horses, so that people were forced to skip after the coffin in order to keep up.

Genius against use

1882 - 1885 Henri comes from his native Albi to Paris and becomes an apprentice in a workshop, where he receives the nickname “liquor bottle”. From the letter: “Dear mother! Send a barrel of wine; According to my calculations, I will need one and a half barrels a year.”

1886 - 1892 Lautrec's parents provide him with maintenance, and he rents a studio and apartment in Montmartre. Next to the easel, Henri holds a battery of bottles: “I can drink without fear, I don’t have to fall too far!” He meets Van Gogh, paints the painting “The Hangover, or the Drunkard” under his influence.

1893 - 1896 Goes to Brussels for an exhibition, at the border he argues with customs officers for the right to bring a box of juniper vodka and Belgian beer to Paris. Usually he drinks himself to the point of disgrace: “Saliva flowed down the lace of his pince-nez and dripped onto his vest” (A. Perruchot. “The Life of Toulouse-Lautrec”). At a social reception he acts as a bartender, deciding to knock off high society, for which he prepares killer cocktails. He boasts that he served more than two thousand glasses during the night.

1897 - 1898 Drinks so much that he loses interest in drawing. Friends are trying to take him out on a boat because “he didn’t drink while at sea.” He falls in love with his relative Alina and thinks about quitting drunkenness. But Alina’s father forbids her to meet with Henri, and he goes on a drinking binge.

1899 After an attack of delirium tremens, the artist’s mother insisted that he go to a mental hospital. There he is given only water to drink. One day Lautrec discovers a bottle of dental elixir on the dressing table and drinks it. Trying to draw again.

1901 Leaves the clinic and returns to Paris in April 1901. At first he leads a sober lifestyle, but, seeing that his hand does not obey him, out of grief he begins to secretly drink. Lautrec's legs are taken away and he is transported to the castle. The father, bored at the bedside of the dying man, shoots flies on the blanket with a shoe eraser. "Old fool!" - Lautrec exclaims and dies. But his paintings are doing better and better: “The Laundress” was purchased in 2008 for $22.4 million. And his image lives on: the lorgnette Karla, the patron of the Parisian demimonde, continues to excite the minds of modern creators (see “Moulin Rouge” by Luhrmann).

Drinking buddies

LA GOULIE
The legendary Moulin Rouge dancer La Goulue (the Glutton) was nicknamed for her habit of sitting next to visitors, eating from their plates and drinking the leftovers from their glasses. Lautrec admired La Goulue and painted several portraits of her.

JULES RENARD
The writer Renard formulated a motto, later taken up by punks: “Exhaust yourself so that you can live quickly and die young.” One day, he and Toulouse drank a box of Burgundy on a dare, snacking only on gherkins.

PAUL GAUGIN
The great impressionist and drunkard loved to walk around Paris arm in arm with Lautrec: Gauguin was tall, and Lautrec was almost a dwarf. Both liked this picturesque tandem, and both were avid absinthe drinkers.

PHOTO GETTY IMAGES

His ancestors - wealthy French aristocrats - filled their endless leisure time with hunts, duels and affairs with beautiful ladies from the royal court. For centuries, idleness and idleness ruled the roost in their luxurious lands. The same fate was in store for little Henri, or more precisely, Henri-Marie-Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfat, the son of Countess Adele and Count Alphonse. But he preferred another...

Henri Toulouse-Lautrec was born on November 24, 1864 in the family castle of Albi in the south of France. The first 14 years of life are pure happiness! As befits a child born with a silver spoon in his mouth, Henri, or Little Treasure (as one of his adoring grandmothers nicknamed him), loved horses and hunting dogs, dreamed, like his father, of participating in hunts and betting on races.

Everything changed suddenly, in an instant, when a 14-year-old boy suddenly fell, breaking his hip. A little later - a second unexpected fall, almost out of the blue - and a fracture of the second leg! Gypsum. Disabled carriage. And the doctors’ terrible verdict: it is impossible to change anything, to stop the course of the disease. The too fragile bones were restored slowly, the legs partially atrophied, Henri stopped growing (according to doctors, the cause of this disaster was the relationship between Toulouse-Lautrec’s father and mother, they were cousins). The boy's familiar world collapsed. The disease developed rapidly - in just a year and a half, the charming, nimble teenager turned into a short-legged dwarf, about fifty meters tall, with an irregular, thick-lipped face. Wasn't it then that he first looked around - and saw real life, in which there are so many tears and pain?.. In any case, there is no doubt: it was the terrible transformation into a dwarf that made Toulouse-Lautrec an artist.

Unhappy Henri realized: painting is the only world where you can hide from your own painful experiences. Knowing his undoubted, early-discovered abilities as a draftsman, he decided to seriously devote himself to painting. To begin with, he became a student of the animal artist Prensto. The thirty-seven-year-old deaf-mute artist sincerely became attached to the crippled teenager, and not only because the child’s talent was overflowing. Two people deprived of nature understood each other. They communicated without words. It was Princeto who taught Henri how to masterfully convey movement (a feature of Lautrec’s work, praised by everyone without exception).

Self-portrait in front of a mirror. 1882-83

After two years of working with Princeto, Lautrec entered the studio of the then famous painter and adherent of academicism, Leon Bonn. The master also praised his pupil, and for good reason - Henri put his whole soul into his work, his canvases “caught” any, even casual, viewer...

Laborer in Celeirane. 1882

The next teacher was Fernand Cormon, who initially charmed Henri with his cheerfulness and simplicity of character. But Cormon, like Bonna, was one of the academicians whose mossy postulates were already tired of young artists...

Lautrec was in love with the bold lines of Edgar Degas' paintings and admired the first Impressionist paintings. Are they scolded by academics? So what, so be it!.. Oh, how he wanted to create his own, individual style, his own technique! To paint pictures, in each of which there will be something unique, special - allowing you to recognize at first glance: “This is Lautrec.”

“Just think, if my legs were a little longer, I would never have taken up painting!” - the artist once exclaimed. And so it was.

Creativity became a real refuge for Lautrec. He painted constantly, obsessively, like a madman, trying to depict the movements of people and animals, the fleeting expression of someone's eyes, someone's tired grimace. He eagerly observed life around him - and sought to capture its moments. In addition, in all Lautrec’s paintings there is a desire to convey the individual characteristics of the model as truthfully as possible, sometimes mercilessly.

Nude. 1883

He grew up, although outwardly he remained the same short freak. “Pray for him,” Countess Adele wrote to her mother. “Being in the workshop gives him a lot from a professional point of view, but it is a difficult test for a young man.”

Day after day, month after month, year after year... Lautrec studied life and painting, more and more boldly transferring to canvas the features and emotions of the people around him. And certainly in each picture there was a piece of his own pain, his unfulfilled hopes.

Artilleryman saddling a horse. 1879

18, 19, 20 years old... Like everyone else at that age, he dreamed of love. But what can you hope for when you're an ugly little guy? The first companies - and the first “science”: it is better to hide your own complexes and experiences deep in your soul, remaining for your many friends and acquaintances an eternally cheerful, laughing (including at yourself) dwarf.

“I would like to see a woman who has a lover even uglier than me!” - shouting these “carefree” words, he laughed first, followed by everyone else.

Perhaps the only woman who sincerely loved Lautrec all his life was his mother, Countess Adele.
It is her portraits, painted by her son, that amaze with their warmth. The sad, sweet face of a woman sitting at a table with a cup of coffee in her hands - wise eyes, pain hidden in the corners of a tired mouth...

The mother was ready to become her son’s shadow in order to invisibly protect him everywhere.

Henri Toulouse-Lautrec. Portrait of Countess A. de Toulouse-Lautrec. 1881-82

But she could not give him what a 20-year-old boy so needed - sensual love, a passion that makes you dizzy and wants to embrace the whole world.

One day one of Henri’s friends decided to help him with this difficult issue. It was he who brought Lautrec together with a public wench who was drawn to all sorts of perversions. Outwardly she was an angel in the flesh, but in essence she was a devil. Having experienced the world of carnal love with her, Lautrec simultaneously experienced severe disappointment. He understood: passion, lust is not love. And even if love lives in his soul, it will certainly never find a way out. Except on canvases.

At the age of 20, Lautrec left home, settling with a friend in Montmartre. A new life began for him.

Montmartre!.. The birth of this bohemian place - a district of artists and poets - occurred simultaneously with the birth of Lautrec - the artist. Once quiet corner Paris, Montmartre gradually turned into a world of bohemia, where cafes endlessly opened - one more original than the other - cabarets, restaurants, salons... It was here that future great artists and writers, poets and actors rented cheap studios and apartments, it was here, in inexpensive cafes, held debates and presentations of their own, not yet recognized masterpieces.

Here, in Montmartre, Lautrec learned the saving joy of friendship. He was almost never alone - together with his peers, who, like him, dreamed of fame, Henri sat all night long in cabarets and circuses, and became a regular at horse races. He ruled, entertained, made people laugh - and his friends simply adored him, forgetting even about his ugliness.

In the image of the Japanese emperor. Photo 1892

Meanwhile, Lautrec worked a lot. He carried paper and pencils with him and constantly made sketches wherever he went. For example, horse racing is an exciting world of jockeys and horses, screaming fans and nosy bookmakers...

Henri Toulouse-Lautrec. At the races. 1899

The theater is a beautiful, but treacherous temple of art, where everyone - both actors and spectators - plays their roles... The house of tolerance - tired priestesses of love, hardened, seasoned girls, with despair suddenly flashing somewhere in the squint of their tinted eyes. .. “Suddenly”... He was always interested in this “suddenly”. It was a crazy life without sleep and sadness. His life!

Incredibly - and yet, in the tiny, distorted body of Toulouse - Lautrec, gigantic energy was hidden. He hardly slept. In the evening, in the company of friends, I hurried to the theater. He didn't care about the content of the plays - he looked at the faces of the actors. He was interested in unusual angles, eyes, looks... Sometimes he went to the same very mediocre performance dozens of times - only to admire the marvelous profile of the heroine each time in a certain scene. He looked and drew, recording his impressions on paper.

The performance is over - it's time to go to the cafe! Drink glass after glass - liqueurs and wine, cocktails and liqueurs, so that the world around you becomes warmer and more smiling, so that witticisms roll off your tongue...

In the image of a cocotte from Montmartre. Photo 1895

He became the true “singer of Montmartre” - the Parisian bohemia recognized this “title” for him - with all the number of artists who worked in Montmartre! “Cha Noir”, “Moulin de la Galette”, “Elise-Montmartre”, and a little later - “Moulin Rouge” - in all these cabarets Lautrec quickly became his own.

At the poster of the Moulin Rouge cabaret, 1892.

In L'Elise-Montmartre, 1888

Henri Toulouse-Lautrec. At the Moulin de la Galette. 1889

With a pencil in his hands, he sat at a table, always in a noisy company of friends, quietly getting drunk and - drawing, drawing. He was in a hurry to capture his world. He drank and drew, painted and drank... And looked around. And when the night slowly rolled towards dawn, he came to the brothel, where he knew every cocotte by name. Had dinner. Sometimes I cooked it myself to surprise my girlfriends. And he drew again, fortunately the women did not seem to notice him.

Salon on Rue Moulins. 1894

In bed. Kiss. 1892

Alone. 1896

Here is a beauty pulling on a stocking, two girlfriends falling asleep hugging each other in the same bed, a girl washing something in a basin... And all this is life! When the sun rose above the horizon, Lautrec fell asleep for a couple of hours. And then life began again, in all its violence and splendor.

At the Moulin Rouge. Dance. 1890

Two friends. 1895.

The heroes of Lautrec's paintings were actors and singers, prostitutes and alcoholics, artists and beggars. Dancer La Goulue and her magnificent partner Valentin Beskostny, singer Yvette Guilbert, circus performer Sha-Yu-Kao and brothel owner Mademoiselle Blanche...

Henri Toulouse-Lautrec. Jeanne Avril. Poster. 1893

Henri Toulouse-Lautrec. Bruant in Eldorado. Poster. 1892

Moreover, in every face, even the youngest and most beautiful, he found something painful, some kind of wormhole - this was the peculiarity of his drawings. A dream came true: people looked and recognized from the first second: “This is Lautrec!”

Not everyone - oh, not everyone - was delighted with his paintings. He captured the essence, character, individuality, but did not embellish, did not flatter, and sometimes even emphasized the external unattractiveness of the models. The only thing that no one could argue with was that his paintings contained energy, the power of life!

Over time, he began to take part in exhibitions - the annual opening days of the G20 in Brussels, exhibitions of the Salon of Independents in the Parisian gallery of Busso and Valadon. His name gradually gained weight - Lautrec was commissioned for paintings and drawings for magazines.

Giovanni Boldini. Portrait of A. Toulouse-Lautrec.

In addition, he was literally inundated with orders for posters - in this genre he turned out to be an unsurpassed master. Henri enthusiastically painted posters for circuses and performances, for cafes and singers. He elevated the poster to the rank of true art.

I also became interested in lithography - the new fashion of the time. He worked tirelessly. Without thinking about health. Without thinking about the future. And his mother’s reproaches died on her lips when she saw her son. A short-legged freak hobbling with a stick, he remained for her the same child with a wounded soul, whom only she could understand. And she forgave him his crazy life, his love for the vicious Montmartre.

Henri Toulouse-Lautrec. Portrait of Countess A. de Toulouse-Lautrec. 1883

Moreover, it was she who insisted that the family allocate funds for Henri to have his own studio. It was a huge victory for the artist! At the age of 22, Lautrec received his own roof over his head - a studio on Tourlak Street.

Around the same time, another one appeared among Lautrec's friends, in whom he immediately recognized the gift of God - Van Gogh. “What an artist, what power!” - Lautrec exclaimed, looking at his canvases.

He instantly fell in love not only with Vincent, but also with the Japanese prints with which his friend’s room was hung. From now on, he had a dream - to see magical Japan with his own eyes. True, this dream will remain among the unfulfilled.

Perhaps it is worth noting another of Lautrec's talents - gastronomic. Brilliant artist was a wonderful cook, who expertly and easily prepared the most exquisite dishes and cocktails. The family's wealth allowed Henri to live for his own pleasure, not counting the measly centimes. And he lived! He received game and homemade preparations, wines and cognacs from family estates. He arranged magnificent feasts for his friends, mixed wonderful cocktails, after which few people remained on their feet. “Dear mother! - he wrote to Countess Adele. “I can only sing hosannas to the digestibility of the capon, which turned out to be incomparable.” Send another barrel of wine; According to my calculations, I will need one and a half barrels a year.”

Beautiful paintings and sumptuous feasts - oh, how friends loved to pop into Henri’s studio! Here, among the colors and colorful canvases, there were always, at any time, lying around roasted chestnuts and pickled gherkins from the Bojek family castle, bottles of fine wine and bags of quince marmalade. Well, on Fridays Lautrec even arranged traditional dinner parties for his friends - artists and jockeys, artists and girls without specific occupations. “To appreciate a picture, you must first overturn good cocktail“, he declared, offering the guests the fruit of his own imagination - a drink called “Trembling”, after which many immediately passed out...

And he was happy to demonstrate his culinary art. Picturesquely, he stood behind the counter, pouring different liqueurs into a glass, spoon by spoon, “laying” them in layers, making sure they didn’t mix: maraschino and curaço, “chartreuse” and “cherry”... He liked to sprinkle the finished cocktails with grated nutmeg. We must use life! In alcohol and food - only the best! Baked leg of lamb, Saint-Jacques scallops with garlic puree, pickled onions, stuffed with cloves...

And one day Lautrec staged a demonstration cooking “American-style lobster in white wine with tomatoes, cayenne pepper and spices” right in the middle of the living room of one of his rich friends. While the servants were hiding expensive furniture under the covers, the living room was filled with a divine aroma that made everyone's mouth water...
We must enjoy life! He rejoiced and taught this joy to others.

Sleepless nights, crazy work and a lot of alcohol...

Henri Toulouse-Lautrec. Hangover. 1889

But someday everything comes to an end, you have to pay for everything. This was the case in the short life of Toulouse-Lautrec.
One morning he left the house in red trousers, with a blue umbrella in his hands and a porcelain dog under his arm. Looking around with unseeing eyes, he unzipped his fly and urinated on his own picture. Delirium tremens! On the same day, friends took him to the Chateau Saint-Jame, a home for the insane. For rich crazy people.

One can imagine the horror that the artist felt when he came to his senses and realized where he was. Relatives and friends visited him, but everyone averted their eyes so as not to meet Henri’s gaze. After all, in his beautiful black eyes one could easily read: “Save me!”

He plunged headlong into work again, drawing all day long - just to prove that he was normal, absolutely normal. His clothes hung like a bag on him, blue-black circles did not pass under his eyes, but the artist achieved his goal - a consultation of doctors granted him freedom.

And again - Montmartre, a cafe, the aroma of roasted chestnuts, the music of street singers... A person cannot change overnight. Of course, Lautrec took up his old ways - not immediately, but gradually - he began to drink again, more and more, without interruption, as if he was in a hurry to put an end to his short brilliant life. He drank and drew, painted and drank...

The 37-year-old artist died on a suffocating night, close to dawn. In the arms of the mother.

The last exhalation - and in the east, where the sun rises, lightning flashed, and rain began to patter on the roof, breaking through the canvas of long unbearable stuffiness. Nature released her sufferer. He died - and there was nothing more beautiful than his exhausted face with closed eyes.

Valentina Gutchina

From the magazine "Times"

“What is Montmartre? Nothing. What should it be? Everyone!”
Rodolphe Saly, owner of the Cha Noir cabaret

"Attention! Here comes the whore. But don't think that this is some random girl. First class product! — broke at the entrance Aristide Bruant, famous crooner and the owner of the newly opened Mirliton cabaret. Henri, he was only 24 years old, watched with admiration Bruant and the bohemians who crowded here every evening.

"Elise-Montmartre". 1888. Photo: Public Domain

"Thank you. I had a wonderful evening. Finally, for the first time in my life, they called me an old brat to my face,” one of the avid visitors, a division general, spoke about “Mirliton.” A sign soon appeared above the entrance: “Those who like to be insulted come here.” By ten o'clock in the evening it was impossible to get inside - the cabaret was overcrowded. Parties took place every day, the noise did not subside until two in the morning.

This building used to house a cabaret. Rodolphe Saly, one of the most famous figures Montmartre. However, Sali decided to move to Laval Street, away from the poor idlers and outright thugs. Nevertheless, his updated Sha-Noir was still popular.

The Moulin de la Galette also drew full houses, where it was always dark and dirty, and on Mondays there was an almost obligatory stabbing. "Elise-Montmartre" is a more decent establishment, with professional dancers and those on duty in the back rows Commissioner of Police Cutla du Rocher. They called him “Daddy Chastity” here.

At first, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec loved Elise-Montmartre most of all, but when Mirliton opened in place of the pretentious, in his opinion, Cha Noir, the young artist became a regular there and soon became friends with Bruant.

“These idiots understand absolutely nothing about my songs,” Bruan told a friend. “They don’t know what poverty is, and from birth they are swimming in gold.” I take revenge on them by insulting them, and they laugh until they cry, thinking that I am joking. But in fact, I often think about the past, about the humiliations I experienced, about the dirt that I had to see. All this comes up in a lump in the throat and pours out on them in a stream of abuse.”

“Marcella Lander dancing a bolero at the Schilperic cabaret,” 1895. Photo: Public Domain

Toulouse-Lautrec also bathed in gold as a child. He came from a distinguished line of generals and commanders, but he also had reasons to hate the establishment. Bruant's Mirliton became his new home. “Quiet, gentlemen! I've arrived great artist Toulouse-Lautrec with one of his friends and some pimp I don’t know,” Henri was loudly greeted at Mirliton.

"Little Treasure" of Bosc Castle

Toulouse-Lautrec moved to Montmartre at the age of 19. He left behind his father, pious mother, aristocratic balls, incomplete higher education and luxurious family estates. At home, Henri was called “Little Treasure”, cherished and cherished.

He was the most active child in the family and could not imagine better activities than hunting and horse riding. In this sense, he completely coincided with his father - a fearless officer, famous not only for military, but also for romantic victories. Free time Count Alphonse devoted to drinking and eccentric antics. It didn’t cost him anything to go out for a walk in the armor of a medieval knight. Neighbors and his wife considered the count eccentric; Henri adored his father and looked up to him.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org

At the same time, “Little Treasure” could not help but notice his mother’s worries. In my time Countess Adele I considered myself a real lucky woman, but now I was clearly tired of my husband’s infidelities. Formally, Henri’s parents separated when he was four years old, immediately after the death of their youngest son Richard. However, then the count returned home several times, and the countess was afraid to contradict him.

At the age of 14, Henri fell from a horse and broke his left femur. For the next 40 days, the teenager did not get out of bed, the bones fused with difficulty, and recovery lasted a year and a half. But as soon as Henri was able to lead an active lifestyle, he climbed onto the horse again and fell again, this time breaking his right hip.

After this, Henri did not grow a centimeter, and until his death his height was one and a half meters. What was much worse was that his body continued to develop, and over time, “Little Treasure” turned into a disproportionate monster with a huge head and short legs. Until the end of his days he walked with a cane.

For the mother this became a tragedy, but for the father it brought only disappointment and irritation: why does he need a son with whom you can’t even shoot a partridge? Count Alphonse believed that his first-born son had been taken away from him and no longer perceived Henri as his son. Then everyone believed that Henri was just a weak and awkward teenager; at that time they did not know about hereditary osteogenesis and genetic diseases of children of close relatives. Henri's parents were cousins.

The mother continued to love and support her son, but she knew that for the snobs from the aristocratic circle, Henri would become an object of ridicule. The daring of fierce battles and ornate ballroom steps are valued here.

Henri himself understood what was happening, although he tried not to show it. He himself was the most ironic about his ugliness - a preemptive strike, because one way or another someone else would make a cruel joke. He loved to go hunting with his father, and he realized that now only painting was left in his life.

Having passed his matriculation exams and successfully studied in several art workshops, by the age of 19, young Toulouse-Lautrec realized that the time had come to start his own life.

The wicked charm of Montmartre

Lautrec settled with friends - Rene And Lily Grenier at rue Fontaine, 19 bis. Lily was very popular, loved by artists, musicians and entrepreneurs. Henri also fell in love with her, although he had the tact to restrain himself. Lily most likely had no idea about this, and they became close friends.

"In the salon on the Rue de Moulins." 1894. Photo: Public Domain

In Grenier's company, Lautrec was the ringleader; he willingly participated in all the entertainment that Lily came up with. Henri was known as a master small talk and invariably made an impression on the assembled guests. Together with his friends, Henri often went to the cabaret, where he also became the life of the party. Lautrec also became a regular at the brothel on Steinkerk Street.

Lautrec no longer had any illusions - he didn’t want to go to the dance floor. Every evening, Henri ordered glass after glass and drew everyone he met - on napkins, scraps of paper, charcoal, and pencil. Literally everything was used. Drawing intoxicated the young man no less than wine. “I can drink without fear, because, alas, I can’t fall very far!” - he joked.

The attentive eye of the artist noticed at first glance all the features of the “target”; Henri could express them with a single line. He painted drunken poets and hopeless prostitutes, famous journalists and writers, representatives of the world and the demi-monde. Lautrec painted everyone indiscriminately - he was interested in personality, he depicted character, not appearance.

"Worthless." 1891. Photo: Public Domain

In brothels, Lautrec met people who no longer had anything to hide or lose. For him, who grew up among snobs, the scammers, pimps and prostitutes in the smoky halls of the Elise-Montmartre, Moulin de la Galette and Mirliton were a breath of clean air.

Mirliton, meanwhile, flourished. Bruant earned 50 thousand francs a year (about €3.5 million in today's money). The whole of Montmartre gathered here, and street prostitutes hid during street raids. On Fridays, parties were held here for a sophisticated audience - entrance cost 12 times more.

"Glutton" from "Moulin Rouge"

In October 1889, Montmartre was buzzing - extravagant businessman Joseph Oller announced that the Moulin Rouge will open on the site of the Rennes Blanche, which was demolished four years ago. All the revelers of Paris came to the opening, including Prince Trubetskoy And Comte de La Rochefoucauld. Toulouse-Lautrec couldn’t pass by either.

One of the walls of the huge hall was mirrored. The room was brightly illuminated by ramps and chandeliers, and glass balls hung everywhere. The girls on stage danced a square dance, and the already famous La Goulue, nicknamed “The Glutton,” became the prima dancer at the Moulin Rouge.

She was 23 years old, she had already conquered Montparnasse and became the main star of the Moulin de la Galette. The girl appeared to the public as an arrogant and arrogant woman who had tried almost everything in life. At the end of the performance, she did not bow, silently turned around and, swaying her hips in black skirt five meters wide, went behind the scenes. La Goulue knew that hundreds of men's eyes were eagerly following her delicious legs. “Would you like to treat the lady?” - this is how every conversation she had began when she went down to the hall.

Among La Goulue's admirers was Lautrec. The Moulin Rouge contained everything he loved, and from the very first evening Henri became a regular guest here. He would start the evening at the Mirliton, then stop by the bar on the way to Cha Noir, and finally end the evening at the Moulin Rouge. He did not forget about the brothels, which he visited with the diligence of a good schoolboy.

“La Goulue with two friends at the Moulin Rouge,” 1892. Photo: Public Domain

Joseph Oller had heard a lot about the famous artist. He sought to make the Moulin Rouge even more famous and for this he wanted to hang bright and unusual posters around the city. The advertising poster for the opening of the Moulin Rouge was drawn by a recognized master Jules Cheret, but the 55-year-old master depicted a cabaret with fluttering Pierrots and angels. Oller needed something brighter and more vicious.

Lautrec agreed to Oller's proposal instantly. In the center of his first poster was La Goulue. Minimal expressive means the artist was able to convey all the notes of the desired image - a smoky room, a crowd of onlookers whose gazes are turned to La Goulue, her always distant expression and flirtatious, provocative poses.

Henri felt that he could realize himself as an artist in advertising. Yes, compared to the paintings of the Impressionists, their deep analysis of light and shadow, deep feelings and fleeting sensations, cabaret posters are a low genre. But there were no rules here, and Lautrec could paint as he saw fit.

The La Goulue posters hung all over the Boulevard Clichy worked; the Moulin Rouge was sold out every evening. The style chosen by Lautrec was perfect. He portrayed simple images, subtly noticing the psychology of personality in them. On his posters, people became understandable and easily readable characters. Henri's posters were sincere and truthful - they depicted exactly what awaited the visitor outside the cabaret doors.

“Moulin Rouge, La Goulue” 1891. Photo: Public Domain

Oller did not have time to count the profits; La Goulue became the face and soul of Moulin Rouge. Cabaret, in turn, took a central place in the nightlife of Montmartre, which became the only place in Paris that was worth going there in the 19th century.

Lautrec was also doing well. His large-scale paintings were exhibited among activists of the Brussels G20, they were highly appreciated Edgar Degas. The artist often went to the theater, where, together with the Grenier spouses, he threw shoes at the actors if they, in their opinion, played poorly. Lautrec spent several weeks on the yacht Cocorico in the Gulf of Arcachon. Henri lived frivolously and did not deny himself anything. People found out about the artist; it was an undoubted success.

A complex freak with a disproportionate body, he always trusted the opinions of others more than his own. That is why he was happy to hear praise from his teachers, that is why he wanted to exhibit with the Impressionists, and that is why he was glad to become a famous artist - to realize himself in the only field available to him.

In total, Lautrec created more than three hundred posters for the Moulin Rouge. Among the public, he was no less famous than La Goulue herself, and this could not help but flatter Henri, whom his own father had once abandoned.

Aristocrat's Curse

Lautrec did not forget about his illness for a second and believed that its cause was his own awkwardness. He did not mince his words and was sometimes known as a cynic among the public. However, those close to him understood that behind his tough and impudent nature was hiding a frightened child, a “Little Treasure.”

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Portrait by Giovanni Boldini. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org

He hated his father and often drew caricatures of him. At the same time, Henri loved his mother, but tried not to catch her eye, so as not to remind her of his ugliness.

Walking in the evenings, Lautrec could shout to the whole street that that girl over there would give herself to him for a couple of francs. However, friends - primarily Lily Grenier - knew that he was afraid of ridicule, and rudeness was a defensive reaction. Although the artist was constantly surrounded by friends, drinking buddies and prostitutes, deep down he remained lonely and tried with all his might to displace dark thoughts with alcohol.

In February 1899, after another attack of delirium tremens, Lautrec was sent to prison for two months. psychiatric clinic. Henri's health was already undermined by syphilis - he became infected from the red-haired Rose, a regular visitor to the Elise-Montmartre.

After treatment, Lautrec went to the Atlantic coast and in April 1901 returned to Paris, emaciated and completely weakened. Alcohol flowed like a river through the streets of Montmartre, and the artist was not going to ignore these turbulent currents.

An unhealthy lifestyle continued to undermine Lautrec. Two months later, his body could not stand it anymore, and he left Paris again. A stroke that occurred in August paralyzed half of his body. Henri gave up and asked his mother to take him to her castle near Bordeaux. In this castle, in the arms of his mother, he died on September 9. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was 36 years old.