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¶ … artworks subject matter, the artist (Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec), and the art movement. Look for information on the context found most relevant to the artwork (I think which should be biographical). Consider how a visual description and an analysis of the work, using Elements of Art and Principles f design supports discussion of context. In addition, discuss how initial interpretation from assignment 1 was challenged, changed, and/or supported by the research process.

The Artist and his style of painting

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (24 November 1864 -- 9 September 1901), a French painter, printmaker, draughtsman and illustrator, was a colleague of Cezanne, Van Gogh and Gauguin, and was one of the great artists of the Post-Impressionist period .

Physically handicapped (with child-size legs and an unknown genetic disorder, that may have been pycnodysostosis) and constrained by his physical limitations, Lautrec threw himself in his art becoming a lithographer, are nouveau illustrator, and famous Post-impressionist painter. His paintings serve to chronicle much of the way of life of 19th century Bohemian Paris.

Lautrec's most famous poster was the Mouline Rouge.

Lautrec, unfortunately, had a difficult life aggravated by his handicap that caused him to have sexual deficiencies. He became an alcoholic, was briefly institutionalized, and died from syphilis and alcoholism at 36. He is buried in Verdelais, Gironde. (Biography of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, 1864-1901)

Lautrec's work was prolific. In the brief span of 20 years, he created 737 canvases, 275 watercolors, 363 prints and posters, and 5,084 drawings. This is despite the ceramic and stained glass work that he produced, and a certain amount of unknown work (Angier, Natalie (6 June 1995). Lautrec was heavily influenced by the figurative painters and impressionist style of Monet and Degas as well as by the classical Japanese woodprints that were then popular in Paris. Reminiscent of much of Manet's style, we see the realism of the worker, or the Parisian lay person, in the nightclub or the working environment with bright colors but with the glamor stripped away. The mood focuses on the essence of the person and on the underlying mood which is sometimes cynical and depressed, and frequently lonely. The mood is highly existentialist.

Lautrec exceled, too, in creating crowd scenes with individuals singled. He gained a reputation of being both detached and sympathetic to his characters.

His paintings have often been described as drawings in colored paint; his paint was applied in long thin brushstrokes with much of the canvass showing through.

A Woman Resting (1889)