Toulouse-Lautrec: Approaching Humanity with Different Brush Strokes

Does one need to suffer in order to empathize with or see through the layers of another person? Not necessarily, but it helps. Although aristocratic by birth, male, and no stranger to privilege, Henri suffered from a genetic bone disease that stunted his leg growth and left him a physical outcast. It was the source for both his brilliance and his ultimate demise.

Artistically inclined, Henri might not have seen people in quite the same way had he not been through much himself. He learned early on, perhaps, that outward appearances lead to misunderstanding, and if you bother to strip that all away, there is pure humanity. He supported Oscar Wilde during his tribulations. He painted what he painted despite ridicule from the artistic community. He often chose prostitutes as his 'models', painting them, not as the playthings of men, but as people, through tender, but unsentimental portrayals of average women doing average things.

He immersed himself, not just in paint, but also in alcohol and unprotected sex - the other side to his coping with lifelong disease. While his search for escape led to a highly productive and remembered career, it was also responsible for his death at the age of 36.

Although quite well known for his cabaret posters, Henri produced a great deal of work on the daily life of the subjects he liked best. Unposed, the women were generally free to carry on with their daily tasks as Henri observed and worked. He was unique in his lack of judgment at a time when there was widespread underground participation in pleasures of the flesh, but public disdain of female sexuality and provided services. Henri was drawn to inner sadness, hardship in life, and the realities of the other half (referring to both the poor and women). He painted the life he lived, and the people he loved.