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Literary
Representations
Hugo
Balzac
Lorettes and society
Lower
Class Prostitutes and the Law
Representations in Les Miserables
Realities of Authority in Paris
Brothels and Streetwalkers
The Privileged Class: Courtesans
Defining the courtesan
Visual representations
Courtesans in reality
Bibliogrpahy
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Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
(1864-1901), was a French postimpressionist painter, lithographer,
and illustrator, who documented the bohemian
nightlife of late-19th-century Paris. Toulouse-Lautrec is well
known for his paintings of prostitutes and courtesans. During
the 19th-century it was very difficult to not have a stand on
women of ill repute. Almost every man was guilty of using their
services at one time or another but that did not always mean that
when faced with a question of the profession they would not pick
it apart and slander the women. Lautrec is perhaps one exaplme
of a man who was able to stay in the penumbra of the argument
and simply put forth, in his paintings, what was there.
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Lautrec
frequented the Moulin Rouge and other cabarets of the Montmartre
district of Paris (for more about districts of
paris click
here) . He also frequented the theater, the circus,
Parisian brothels and often dance halls along with prostitutes,
who mingled among the clientele in search of business. The dance
halls commissioned Lautrec to create advertising posters (seen
below). After its opening, the Moulin Rouge dance hall reserved
a table for Lautrec every night, and displayed his paintings.
Prostitutes befriended, supported, and modeled for the unesthetically
pleasing, crippled man who would one day be remembered as one
of the great artists of 19th-century France.
8.Henri de
Toulouse-Lautrec, Moulin Rouge - La Goulue, 1891
8.rollover
image: Henri de Toulous-Lautrec, Jane Avril, 1893 (for source
of both pictures click here)
In the above
poster, Lautrec shows one of the stars of the Moulin Rouge, La
Goulue as she performs the scandalous chahut (can can) with her
loose-limbed partner Valentin Le Désossé (the boneless).
In the rollover
image, Lautrec portrays the debut of Jane Avril at the Jardin
de Paris, a café-concert on the Champs-Elysées. Jane Avril began
her career as a dancer at the Moulin-Rouge in 1889, developing
a relatively refined style that contrasted with the vulgar exhibitionism
of La Goulue.
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As
a purchaser of their services, Toulouse-Lautrec also had more
direct dealings with prostitutes. Indeed, sometimes he would
pack up and move into a brothel for days or months on end. He
enjoyed shocking acquaintances by giving the address of a brothel
as his place of residence. Prostitutes and madams accepted Lautrec
as a fellow outcast, and permitted him to wander about, sketching
and painting freely on his own initiative or on commission to
the brothels. He grew close to his prostitute models; he played
games with them, brought them presents, and accompanied them
to his studio, restaurants, circuses, or theaters during their
time off.
- He neither
vilified nor glamorized these women, but presented an objective,
almost documentary view of the everyday life they shared with
him.
Unlike Victor
Hugo and Alexandre Dumas, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec did not stand
on either side of the divide in his depiction's of courtesans
and prostitutes. He saw them as people and regardless of whether
he thought them to be women of ill repute or paragons of virtue
fallen upon hard times, he painted them as they were. Not always
in a bright light and not always in darkness.
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