[Ferret Overlord]

Alex Bensch
A Period
Mrs. Pyrek

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was born on Nov. 24, 1864, in Albi, France. His father was a rich man. His mother was very attached to her only living child, Henri. Henri was weak and often sick. By the time he was 10 he had begun to draw and paint. He received some art training from an animal painter, Rene Princeteau, in Paris when he was fourteen.
At 12, Toulouse-Lautrec broke his left leg and at 14 his right leg. The bones didn't heal properly, and his legs stopped growing. He reached young adulthood with a body of normal size but with very short legs. He was only 1.5 meters tall. This was very depressing to Lautrec. He often made fun of himself in his paintings.
He stayed in the Montmartre, the center of the hectic life that he loved to paint. Circuses, dance halls and nightclubs, racetracks--all these spectacles he put down on canvas.Toulouse would sit in nightclub, away from where people could make fun of him, drawing sketches. The next morning in his studio he would turn the sketches into paintings.
To keep people from making fun of him he began to drink. In the 1890s the drinking started to affect his health. He was put in his mother's care at home, but he could not stay away from alcohol. Toulouse-Lautrec died on Sept. 9, 1901. Since then his paintings and posters bring high prices at auctions and art sales.
Lautrec always wanted to show people's emotions when he drew. Part of his style was his ability to see the feelings and moods he felt in his models. Lautrec loved to draw movement, whether it was dancing, riding, or gymnastics. This showed how much he wanted to be normal. But since he couldn't do all those things, he decided to draw them. He loved to draw hats and elaborate clothing, the style of those times.

Toulouse Lautrec was a Post-Impressionist artist. He drew a more casual type of drawing. This type of art expressed emotion in things rather than detail. Since Henri was a very emotional person, his emotion was painted into his art. He was very humorus, but hated his appearance, thinking of himself as "sloppy" and "insecure".
His art is considered one of the turning points in post impressionism.

This post has been edited by Ferret Overlord: 08 October 2004 - 11:03 AM