Profil 1881

Curator: Check out this quick little pencil sketch. It’s called "Profil" by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. He made it back in 1881. Editor: The figure is barely there—evanescent, you might even say. Is that a man's profile? A wispy line for the hat and the barest hint of shoulders, it's like a fleeting impression more than a fully realized image. Curator: I agree, it has an air of impermanence to it. Lautrec was just seventeen at the time, wasn’t he? To me, it's as though he's sketching an idea, rather than striving for a likeness. The line is tentative, yet so sure. You get this feeling, you know, of the raw artistic potential. Editor: I wonder about that paper itself. Its texture, the grade...was it a common stock for sketches or something special? What kind of pencil gives you such a delicate line? Because this lightness almost speaks of disposability, of material meant for exploration, not necessarily posterity. Curator: True! The materiality amplifies that feeling of spontaneity, for sure. To think, that fleeting sketch on an inexpensive scrap is here with us now. Lautrec’s portraits capture something, don’t they? A mood, a feeling. Never just mere surfaces, like so much academic painting from that time. It goes beyond likeness; he seemed to see right through people, almost! Editor: Absolutely, but seeing "through" people also depends on how social factors determine who gets represented, how, and why. The materials shape that access, the potential for visibility, the preservation of those representations, and who owns and controls that process. That's what really strikes me, always: art as a product, and art as work. Curator: That's such a fascinating, if perhaps pragmatic way to put it. Ultimately, to see the evolution of his signature, how it went from tentative scribbles in the corner, such as it is in this piece, into his bold flourishes—that, for me, that's something very magical. Editor: A valuable testament of making artistic identity through, with, and upon a confluence of materiality and means of artistic production.