La Liseuse 1889

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec rendered this oil on cardboard painting, La Liseuse, at the close of the nineteenth century. Look closely, and you’ll see the quick, sketch-like quality that oil paint can have. It’s as if he used the brush almost like a crayon, freely hatching the surface. This immediacy brings us closer to the artist's experience and conveys the intimate setting of the painting, a woman reading in bed. As for those books, remember that at this time, publishing was a mass phenomenon, a new form of industrial production. This meant that reading, once a specialized skill, became a form of consumption. It also made knowledge more widely available. So, while La Liseuse may seem like a simple image, it reminds us that art doesn’t just appear out of nowhere. It is made from materials that have their own history, and it reflects the world around us.