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At the Moulin Rouge
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec · Post-Impressionism & Neo-Impressionism
- Artist
- Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864–1901)
- Date
- 1892–1895
- Dimensions
- 123 x 141 cm
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Location
- Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, United States
At the Moulin Rouge shows a group of friends seated around a table at the famous Montmartre dance hall. A woman's face, lit an eerie green by the electric light, looms at the right edge, and in the background the dancer La Goulue arranges her red hair in a mirror.
A closer look
The painting is full of portraits of real people from Lautrec's circle, and the artist himself appears in the background: the small man in a bowler hat walking beside his very tall cousin, Dr Gabriel Tapié de Céleyran. The bold diagonal of the bannister, the cropped figures and the unusual viewpoints show the influence of Japanese prints and of Degas. The harsh light and the strange colours, especially the ghostly green face, turn a night of fun into something unsettling and melancholy.
More by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
In this gallery
Famous works elsewhere
- La Toilette 1896
- La Blanchisseuse 1889
- Le Lit 1892