La Goulue and Paul Lescau 1894

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec made this image of La Goulue and Paul Lescau with pencil and brush in France around the turn of the century. Lautrec devoted his career to chronicling the performers of Montmartre, the Parisian district that, by the 1890s, had emerged as a locus of avant-garde art and bohemian culture. Lautrec's images of dancers, singers, and prostitutes capture the excitement of modern nightlife. But they also reveal the social conditions that shaped the lives of his subjects. La Goulue, for instance, was a famous can-can dancer who rose from working-class origins to become a star of the Moulin Rouge. Lautrec was fascinated by the way in which popular entertainment blurred the boundaries between high and low culture, and he saw the Moulin Rouge as a space where different social classes could mingle and interact. By examining archival sources such as newspapers, police reports, and theater programs, we can gain a deeper understanding of the social and cultural context in which Lautrec's art was made.