The end of the year before last - the beginning of the last century were extremely fruitful for the brilliant artists of the painting, whose paintings today cost millions of dollars at various auctions. The Frenchman Toulouse-Lautrec, an artist, by the grace of God, rightfully belongs to them. The parents of the future recognized talent came from an aristocratic family, and the boy himself was sick a lot in childhood and, of course, was fond of drawing. Mostly he portrayed horses and dogs, and also liked to make cartoons of the people around him.
The beginning of the way
Parents were not opposed to the fact that his son was engaged in art. Toulouse-Lautrec (paintings of that period almost did not survive) already in 1884 opened his own workshop in the bohemian region of Montmartre - then housing there was quite cheap. Nearby were the workshops of other subsequently known painters and sculptors. I must say that the appearance of the artist was very original. His height was below 150 centimeters (but then he was not considered a dwarf, since the average height of a man in France was 10 centimeters lower than today), his head was disproportionately huge (apparently due to childhood illnesses), and his legs were small size.
Life and death
The talented young artist Toulouse-Lautrec, whose paintings have already begun to gain popularity among art admirers, led a very diffused lifestyle. By the age of 30, he was a hopeless alcoholic and fell ill with syphilis, as a result of belonging to Bohemia. Attacks of delirium tremens became more frequent , after which Lautrec was referred by his mother for treatment (1899) to a mental hospital near Paris. He spent almost three months there, and after signing out, he almost immediately took up the old with renewed vigor, as if he wanted to bring himself to the grave as soon as possible. In 1901, he returned to the capital, completed several unfinished works. On the Atlantic coast in the same year, a stroke breaks him, and the artist dies at the age of 36.
Toulouse-Lautrec. Paintings
For his life in art, which lasted less than 20 years, the artist painted a huge number of works: more than 5 thousand drawings, 363 posters and prints, 275 watercolor sketches. Oil paintings in the amount of 737 did not enjoy the special attention of the then critics. Among them are such as “In the Moulin Rouge”, “Laundress”, “Ironwoman”, “Portrait of Van Gogh”, “Cable Dancer”. True recognition came only when Toulouse-Lautrec passed away. His paintings are appreciated to this day, taking the best positions at auctions and in collections - private and museum.