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Course: The J. Paul Getty Museum > Unit 2
Lesson 2: DrawingsHenri Toulouse-Lautrec's circus drawings
The circus was one of the great spectacles of late-19th-century Paris, and it attracted many artists. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec frequently visited the Cirque Fernando in Paris. See how Lautrec represented ringmasters, clowns, dancers, and riders, as he and other artists, such as Seurat and Bonnard, began to portray everyday leisure and pleasures of modern life. Created by Getty Museum.
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Toulouse-Lautrec must certainly have had to deal with some serious abuse in his time given his height. The power and optimism of his paintings and drawings shows that he had a light side though and didn't let it all get to him. It was unfortunate to hear that he was an alcoholic though, but I can understand why. Did Henri Toulouse-Lautrec ever fraternize with the other artists of this time? I know we learned earlier that Van Gogh was trying to create a "brotherhood of artists" of sorts...(3 votes)
A lot of artists had depression or were/are bipolar, many drew to depict a feeling.Sadness, anger,despair, and many artists turned to alcohol to relive depression, some for general reasons some did so when their career was not doing well.Toulouse depicted more happy feelings,so its a bit harder to tell exactly why he was an alcoholic,as I know only a little about him,but this is the common reason.(3 votes)
Video transcript
(circus music) Voiceover: Wearing a fur
lined jacket and a stiff tutu, a performer slowly makes her way into the ring of the circus tent. Her horse knows the route by heart and plods along in front of her. In a few deft strokes, the
artist Henri Toulouse-Lautrec captured both sides of the circus, the glamour of the bright lights, an expectant audience and the weariness of the performer behind the scenes. The drawing now lives in the
Getty Museum's collection. Lautrec made it in 1899 in a hospital room where he was being treated
for alcoholism and dementia. While there, he made more
than fifty circus scenes completely from memory. The subjects, acrobats,
equestrian performers, animals were deeply familiar to him. He made the series to prove to his doctors that he was well again and
it seems to have worked. When he was released from the
clinic after only three months, he told a friend that he bought
his freedom with his drawings. Lautrec was only four and a half feet tall and walked with a cane his whole life. To him, more so than for other spectators, the circus performers
represented the perfection of muscle, nerves and technique. For Lautrec, the circus
was the ideal spectacle, a great celebration of
hilarity, glamour and squalor. Lautrec reveled in it. He went often and sketched prolifically. In the late 1800s, circuses,
cabarets and dance halls had all become more and more popular with middle-class audiences. These activities offered a new way of participating in public life. People could see and be
seen like never before. For the first time, artists
began depicting scenes of regular people enjoying themselves. Auguste Renoir painted a
couple promenading in the park. Edgar Degas sketched people
at cafes and brothels. These and other artists used
laundresses, prostitutes, cabaret and circus performers as models. They rendered their
subjects in the moment, in the midst of a gesture or conversation. Everyday leisure and
entertainment were now at the center of the image. Lautrec drew these scenes
with unmatched honesty, capturing the here and now of modern life. (circus music)