In my essay I will be writing about French artist Henri de Toulous-Lutrec who was born in 24 November, 1864 into an aristocratic family in southern France. His parents were first cousins in result of which he was often sick and had many health complications. He drank a lot which affected his health. Toulouse-Lautrec died on Sept. 9, 1901, at the family chateau of Malrome.
Toulous-Lutrec was mostly known as small man who did big thinks like his major contribution in the area of advertising. Apart from that he was also a painter, lithographer and illustrator. He was mostly influenced by Art Nouveau style as other artists of the period.
As a child he already had a talent in art. He painted a lot, especially animals which he loved. In his paintings we can really see what he was amazed by. When he was younger he pictured animals mostly horses, because his family had ranch and his father was a passionate hunter. After going to Paris for studies where he discovered a lower entertainment of Montmartre and the pleasure for adults in local brothels he started to be really interested in women who began to appear more in his paintings. It is told that most of the women in his paintings had spent a certain time with him in bed. In his paintings he captured them as how they were and as who they were which was clearly readable. Someone would not give it an attention because of what or who was on the canvas but the way how he visualized them makes it appealing to the viewer. He often hid women's faces behind hair or painted them in positions, postures which emphasized their femininity.
Even though his paintings were excellent, it would not make him so outstanding. What I want to focus on is his influence to an advertisement.
His posters are different to his paintings. What we see in his posters is not only a depiction of reality maybe with beforehand prepared composition but it is mainly well thought out design which is made to meet certain demand and for certain purposes.
When we compare his posters to current posters, there are not too many changes if we do not count the technology. In his posters are elements which are common for current posters and advertisement as emphasizing on typography. So there is not only a plane block of text or just an announcement without visual idea behind that, but he really tried to play with type of fonts, colors and composition. It is amazing how brilliantly he did it, if we think about how limiting it was at that time and the fact that it was something new.
He also focused on graphical side and even on promotion of products, one of the first signs of advertising. It was something different from what people knew, like notice or announcement which only gave people the idea what is going on and eventually caught their attention but Lautrec went much further. He played with human psychology in his posters by convincing them in the way he wanted which still works in today's commercialized world.
There were many artist influenced by Art Nouveau style in his time. One of them was Alphonse Mucha, Czech artist who is known for his Slav Epic. He also did lithography, but his style clearly differs from what Lautrec did. In Mucha's posters the common motif is woman, flowers and plants made into ornaments. His works are much more detailed and complex meanwhile Lautric's work is technically more simple, focusing more on the detail of meaning than to visual details. Mucha's posters looks more like a painting than a poster. I really like details Mucha put into his posters but sometimes it feels distracting. Lautric has it simple and clear which is sometimes better when it concerns advertisement.
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