Mockingbird

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec at the Tretyakov Gallery

Many readers will be confused by the subtitle of the article: “Lautrec at the Tretyakov Gallery.” Why would that be? A Frenchman in the Museum of Russian Art? The curator of the exhibition, organized with the assistance of OJSC VTB Bank and the Leonard Gianadda Foundation, Ekaterina Selezneva explains the tour elegantly: the brought lithographs (stone engravings) of Toulouse-Lautrec, numbering 81, are stored in the Library of the National Institute of Art History of France. They got there according to the will of Jacques Doucet, a man of the Art Nouveau era, couturier, philanthropist, contemporary of Toulouse-Lautrec. Doucet was just as obsessed with collecting his native art as Pavel Tretyakov. Like Pavel Mikhailovich, Doucet bequeathed his collection to the state. So a friendly visit to the collection of like-minded Tretyakov can be interpreted as an occasion to once again recall the peculiarities of the birth of the Moscow collection. It is also noteworthy that the formation of the Tretyakov collection was replete with many details that were later erased by Soviet ideology. It turns out that Lautrec’s work was already present in the Moscow gallery at the beginning of the 20th century. One of the first collectors of French art in Russia, Mikhail Abramovich Morozov, bequeathed his collection to the Tretyakov Gallery. And from 1910 to 1925, a sheet by Toulouse-Lautrec on the theme of vibrant Montmartre life was listed in the Tretyakov collections. And in the second half - late 1920s, the Soviet government began a reform of the redistribution of museum funds, and Mikhail Morozov’s Western collection left the gallery.

How are Toulouse-Lautrec’s prints perceived within the Russian artistic myth, in associative connections with the anthology of Russian art history? Who do you manage to communicate with? Which of “ours” is Lautrec calling out? Who is he winking at?

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec immortalized the colorful chaos of bohemian Montmartre life. In posters, sketches, and invitations, he depicted the regulars of Montmartre: chansonettes, cabaret dancers, musicians, prostitutes, pimps, artists in wittily captured mise-en-scenes. Lautrec was selflessly in love with all this flickering of impressions, alien to any seriousness, both ethical and aesthetic. And in no case did he denounce or ridicule anything. More like he was joking. Possessing a brilliant gift for collecting a colored suspension, the pollen of impressions, he imitated in the “heavy” lithographic technique the effects of momentary calligraphic pencil strokes or masterly watercolor glows. With chic and gusto, he seemed to parody the possibilities of various techniques in order to capture the atmospheric evanescence of Montmartre life. Lautrec also proved himself to be a masterly parodist in directing the plastic sketches themselves. The world of objects imitates the world of people. The world of people is seen in the clownish mirror of fables and metaphors with talking animals. In photographer Sesco's poster, the lens trained on the Moulin Rouge dancer is clearly associated with the phallus. Overdoing it on the field of sexual battles, the small and not at all young “Tired Eros” with a broken leg (!) resembles a sad chimera that flew off the cornice of Notre-Dame. Items (furniture, mirrors, binoculars, fans) seem to giggle at their owners, taking an active part in directing the most ambiguous mise-en-scenes. And Lautrec’s rapidly drawn and printed images of circus animals (prancing horses, fat-bottomed lustful pugs) very clearly hint at their family relations with the regulars of the Montmartre quarters.

Ekaterina Selezneva named the Russian answer to Lautrec's parody gift quite accurately - Pavel Fedotov. It was he who, back in Gogol’s time, forced the world of things, lovingly nurtured in his paintings, to act and act comically, to make fun of their owners, to parody them. He even included the history of world art itself in this travesty series. As a mockingbird, Lautrec is congenial to Fedotov. However, there is one difference. Fedotov's world is sensual, full-blooded, textured. The world of Toulouse-Lautrec is ephemeral, ghostly. For all his mocking, he is defenseless and gentle. It's still a dream, an illusion. It is about to disappear, to dissipate. Fate prepared Toulouse-Lautrec to be an eternal observer of someone else's holiday. Crippled from birth, he exposed the distance between himself and life in his art. And the mood of high melancholy, seemingly incompatible with frivolous subjects, makes the art of Toulouse-Lautrec similar to the work of Viktor Borisov-Musatov, a master who overcame his physical weakness by weaving picturesque tapestries about an unattainable dream.

Sergei KHACHATUROV