Dance at the Moulin Rouge

La Danse au Moulin Rouge [1] (Dutch: Dance at the Moulin Rouge) [2] is a painting by the French artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, made ​​in 1890, oil on canvas, 115.5 x 150 centimeters. It shows a scene with a cancan -danseres the cabaret, the Moulin Rouge in Montmartre, painted in a post-impressionist style.The work now is in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art .

Content

 * 1 Context
 * 1.1 Moulin Rouge
 * 1.2 La Goulue
 * 1.3 Friends of Lautrec
 * 2 Composition
 * 3 Reception
 * 4 Gallery
 * 5 References and sources
 * 6 External links
 * 7 Notes

Moulin Rouge
The cabaret Moulin Rouge was in 1889 and had to compete with the nearby Elysee Montmartre. Was there, which was relatively new at the time, invested heavily in creating a comfortable atmosphere and in advertising. Lautrec posters would also various designs for the spectacular attractions that were organized. AlsoDance at the Moulin Rouge was shortly after manufacture for marketing reasons purchased by the owners of the cabaret, Charles Zidler and Joseph Oller, who from 1890 to 1893 above the central bar of the establishment hung alongside another work of Lautrec: In Circus Fernando: horsewoman .

La Goulue

La Goulue [ edit ]
Heart on the dance floor, with the red stockings, is the popular dancer Louise Weber (1870-1929) depicted as the cancan dancing. Weber was nicknamed "La Goulue" (greedy) because they always had an insatiable appetite. She was at the age of sixteen by the artist Zacharie Astruc introduced at the Circus Fernando, where she performed as a dancer.Later she would also occur in La Moulin de la Galette, where Lautrec met her. Soon he would use her as a model.

La Goulue was known as somewhat vulgar. She made her name by which they occur -which Lautrec afbeeldt- on one leg could make such a big twist her skirt, beneath red or black silk stockings, high opwervelde; Then she bent down and pushed her ass backwards with underwear on which was embroidered red heart. Upright, she could lift one leg so high that it was in line with her body. Around 1890, drew her many public appearances and earned them a long time good money. After 1895, however, its success waned quickly and had to earn a living with odd jobs as a flower seller, wrestler and dierentemster in the Circus Juilano and doorman in a brothel. She died in 1929, not yet 60 years old, bitter and forgotten, as alcoholic.

[Friends of Lautrec edit ]
Dance at the Moulin Rouge except La Goulette also see lots of other friends of Lautrec. Links La Goulue is her dance partner Venetin-le-Désossé, so named because of its enormous flexibility. In the background, at the bar, is the white-bearded Irish poet William Butler Yeats . Between La Goulue and the dominant but otherwise unknown in pink dressed woman in the foreground, we see, wearing top hats, illustrator Verney and Guilbert photographers and Sescau. Also present are the painters Marcellin Desboutin andFrancois Gauzi . They all were friends of Lautrec. A little left behind, we still see a dancing Jane Avril in her black cape, which was responsible for the organization of the dancing and the opportunity at the time of painting had just started a relationship with Lautrec.

Lautrec painting Dance at the Moulin Rouge.

[Composition edit ]
The most innovative in the work of Lautrec is the great compositional freedom and the apparent immediacy of painting, where it is extremely well thought into reality.In Dance at the Moulin Rouge show that especially from the sophisticated play of complementary colors and the judicious balance between the figures, whose position is such that they should strengthen the depth. The work is more clearly elaborated in that respect than his earlier The Moulin de la Galette. Lautrec invites the viewer as it were to enter the painting, to join the spectators and to serve them as frame of the scene depicted in the nightlife, along with the slow spectators.

Lautrec was a frequent visitor to the Moulin Rouge and even had a regular table. There he often sat talking with his friends, but at the same time it was for him a kind of makeshift studio. His table was a perfect place from which he could see everything in the room and could bring good from a desired perspective in view.

Reception [ edit ]
Lautrec exhibited his Dance at the Moulin Rouge for the first time in the Salon des Independants of 1890. The subject and unvarnished view of the nightlife in Parisgave rise to a lot of negative criticism in the press of that time: "Impetuous furies that rotate with raised skirts some perverted males from the suburbs, "was read. The occasion was also immediately seized upon to act against the former popularity of the cancan, which was put down as an erotic show. Eventually the noise only led to an increase in curiosity at the bourgeois public and an increase in the popularity of the nightclubs in Montmartre. [3]