When the Moulin Rouge opened in 1889, it quickly became the hottest nightspot in Montmartre, the bohemian neighborhood just north of central Paris. Inside, a corner table was permanently reserved for Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. He could be found there most nights. Sketching.
He even appears in the background of his own iconic painting, At the Moulin Rouge, walking alongside his much taller cousin, a medical student.
“To think,” the artist once quipped, “that I’d never have painted if my legs had been just a little longer.”
Henri-Marie-Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa was born into a noble family with roots stretching back to Charlemagne. His family tree reveals a history of intermarriage—a practice now known to increase the risk of genetic disorders.
The artist’s parents were reportedly first cousins. This hereditary link likely stunted his growth, leaving his legs brittle and childlike—even as his torso developed normally. Is this why he avoided depicting himself in his work? And only with a sense of irony when he did?
A gift for empathy
Being an aristocrat who stands well under five feet tall informs Lautrec’s perspective. Many of his paintings convey a deep empathy for people who felt like outsiders during La Belle Époque (The Beautiful Era) in Paris.
In one of his earliest works, The Laundress, a young woman pauses from her work to gaze out a window. The indistinct rooftops visible through the glass suggest she’s dreaming of a life beyond this low-rent garret.
Her bony hand, roughened by hard work, contrasts with her lithe body. The clear distinction between her stiff arm and the undulating shape of her back conveys weariness and a diminishing spirit.
Many artists go for novelty and see their value and justification in novelty. But they are wrong. Novelty is hardly ever important. What matters is always just the one thing: to penetrate to the very heart of a thing and create it better.
Post-Impressionist artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
While Lautrec shared the Impressionists’ preoccupation with capturing fleeting moments from everyday life, his brushwork remained distinctly different from that of Monet, Renoir, or Morisot.
Drawing in paint
In 1888, he began experimenting with bolder colors and thinner oil paint. Influenced by Japanese woodblock prints, he adopted a new style: long, sweeping strokes to outline forms and short strokes to add texture to flat areas of color.
In contrast to the Impressionists, Lautrec was not concerned with recreating optical sensations. His aim was to catch life on the wing. He wanted to preserve a stylistic continuity between his rapid sketches and the paintings into which they developed.
Art historian Douglas Cooper, “Toulouse-Lautrec,” 2005
To create Moulin de la Galette, Lautrec thinned his paint with turpentine, then applied it in translucent washes. This allowed unprimed canvas to peek through, giving the crowded dance hall a spacious atmosphere.
He holds the composition together with a deft mix of horizontal and vertical lines, crowded and empty spaces, and the tension generated by opposing profiles: the woman on the left and the man wearing a bowler hat. (Sheesh, just ask her to dance already!)
Famously set in a historic windmill, Moulin de la Galette was Lautrec’s first cabaret scene. While dancing was the main draw, the artist often turned his gaze toward the audience—many of whom came alone.
What good is sitting alone in your room?
In A Corner of the Moulin de la Galette, the artist offers an unusually sad and blue glimpse into Parisian nightlife. A queue forms on the left—likely to buy drinks. In the foreground, a man and a woman share a table. Even though they sit side by side, they are psychologically miles apart.
Meanwhile, a woman in a long, dark coat approaches the man in brown. She’s not smiling. Who—or what—is she looking for?
To isolate these three figures from everyone else, the artist crouches down and looks up—a viewpoint that obscures the background. As with his other cabaret scenes, this one tells us almost nothing about the dance hall itself. (See Renoir’s painting of the Moulin de la Galette)
Lautrec meets his muse
A key factor in the success of Parisian cabarets was the emergence of celebrity culture. Of all the stars he portrayed, it was Lautrec’s lifelong friend Jane Avril who most appreciated his talent. “Without a doubt, I owe him the fame I enjoyed from the moment his first poster of me appeared,” she said.
Born in Paris, the out-of-wedlock daughter of a nobleman and a demi-mondaine, Avril had a difficult childhood during which she often had to beg in the streets. Yet she dreamed of becoming a great dancer. Luckily, she was blessed with natural grace.
When the famous can-can dancer Louise Weber left the Moulin Rouge, Avril was chosen to take her place. Avril’s sensuous, melancholic dancing contrasted sharply with Weber’s gloriously vulgar performances. Still, the audience adored her and she soon became one of the most recognizable figures in Paris. A bewitched magazine editor described Avril’s stage presence as having “an air of depraved virginity.”
Jane Avril Leaving the Moulin Rouge was created at the height of the dancer’s celebrity. Lautrec painted it on sturdy cardboard, allowing the board’s natural color to become part of the design—a technique he would consistently favor. Bold teal and gold brushmarks evoke the shimmering lights of Paris after dark.
The painting shows Jane Avril wrapped up in her own thoughts. Her conservative street clothes give no hint of her stage life in the raucous dance hall. Her downward glance and closed body language take us from the realm of public personality to private individual. Lautrec is showing us the person behind the celebrity.
Mary Weaver Chapin, “Toulouse-Lautrec and the Culture of Celebrity,” 2005
“Now I will pitch my camp in a brothel”
In the winter of 1892, Lautrec was commissioned to create paintings for a renovated brothel. The women felt honored that “Monsieur Henri” had agreed to portray them. One woman even brought flowers to his studio. “They all possess a kind heart,” he said.
While working on the project, Lautrec discovered that women who support themselves by catering to the sexual wants of men frequently seek genuine affection from one another. His brothel paintings convey an intimacy between seer and seen that is unparalleled in the history of art. “It’s an intimacy that precludes all judgement,” said art critic John Berger.
One of Lautrec’s most beautiful paintings, The Two Friends, shows two cocottes curled up in bed, enjoying a moment of safety and contentment.
He was equally inspired by the women of In Bed: The Kiss and returned to them for four separate paintings. “Just imagine, when you see the way they love, eh? The technique of tenderness,” he said.
A celebrity in his own right
When he wasn’t painting, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec hosted masquerade parties, mixed creative cocktails, and had a wonderful sense of humor that kept him at the center of things in Paris.
Even so, he had little success with women. “I should like to see the woman on this earth who has a lover uglier than me,” he said. His obsession with Montmartre’s nightlife was, in part, a way to dull his feelings of loneliness.
More than any other artist, his paintings and groundbreaking posters reflect the hedonistic optimism of the Belle Époque period. He was drawn to the energy, despite his frail constitution. “Ah, life, life!” he would say while sketching.
I was always struck by the way Lautrec changed his way of talking when art was being discussed. On any other subject he was cynical and witty, but on art he became totally serious. It was like a religious belief for him.
19th-century French artist Édouard Vuillard
Lautrec painted only one self-portrait. Made when he was just 18 years old, the picture obscures his underdeveloped legs. Instead, it shows a young man gazing into a mirror, reflecting on the life he might have led had destiny dealt him a different hand.
Postscript: If you happen to be in Florence…
See “Toulouse-Lautrec: A Journey through the Paris of the Belle Époque” at the Museo degli Innocenti in Florence, Italy, thru June 7, 2026. This major exhibition showcases more than 170 works by the artist, alongside period furniture and other Belle Époque artifacts.