June 18 - October 30, 2016
A unique painting Inside Bruant’s Le Mirliton (L’Intérieur de chez Bruant: Le Mirliton) was unveiled Thursday, Jyne 9, 2016, at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA). It is the work of a French painter and printmaker Louis Anquetin, who was one of the fathers of the technique cloisonnisme popular at the end of the nineteenth century. The canvas is included in the present MMFA exhibition devoted to Toulouse Lautrec.
Forgotten for decades, the painting reappeared at Sotheby's auction that took place in New York in November, 2014. It was acquired by a private individual who landed it to MMFA for its first public exposure as part of the MMFA exhibition devoted to Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.
L’Intérieur de chez Bruant: Le Mirliton (Inside Bruant’s Mirliton) is a major rediscovery in terms of the art history of fin‐de‐siècle Paris. With vibrant brushstrokes and brilliant colours, Anquetin has conjured the dynamic culture of Montmartre in its heyday. He depicts several iconic figures, including La Goulue and Aristide Bruant, contemporaries of Toulouse‐Lautrec, as well as Toulouse‐Lautrec himself.
“Unknown to experts and specialists until very recently, this monumental work could only be imagined through its preparatory drawings, which have since been dispersed. It bears witness not only to Anquetin’s aesthetic modernity, but also to a deep change in the era’s artistic practices. From Toulouse‐Lautrec to Picasso, painters’ studios were no longer in the academies but in the streets, café‐concerts and cabarets,” stated Gilles Genty, art historian and guest curator of the exhibition Toulouse‐Lautrec Illustrates the Belle Époque.
Conceived as a record of an era, this painting was created in the style of bohemian artists. Anquetin drew the general outline of his composition in pastel, at the same time making a myriad of preparatory studies for each figure, sometimes even on wrapping paper. Those drawings were exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants in March 1888.
Anquetin began the painting in a garret and continued working on it on site at the cabaret itself. The final painting on display represents several artists from the Belle Époque at the Mirliton, Aristide Bruant’s raucous café that was a frequent haunt of Anquetin and Toulouse‐Lautrec. The famous dancer Louise Weber, known as La Goulue, is depicted in the centre, leaning over the table, inviting us to enter. Charismatic and sensual, La Goulue caused a sensation in the cabarets with the chahut, her wild variation on the Can‐Can.
Facing the viewer are Émile Bernard and Marie Valette, Anquetin’s favourite model from 1886 to 1892 and who, in a very daring move for a woman at that time, is lighting up a cigarette in public. On their left is the tall, lean figure in a top hat, which was the trademarks of François Gauzi. Seated at the table to the right, with his back turned towards the viewers, is Paul Tampier. To the left is the painter Émile Bernard. And standing behind and to the left of him is Toulouse‐Lautrec, a regular at the Mirliton went on to revolutionize printmaking.
In the background is Aristide Bruant himsel, the owner of the establishment. Dressed in a red shirt, he stands on the bar's counter, hands on his hips, preparing to recite poetry. He was a huge success at Le Chat Noir, and decided to open his own cabaret, the Mirliton, in 1885. It became a veritable creative hub in the heart of Montmartre as well as one of the first establishments to permanently exhibit works by Toulouse‐Lautrec.
Another work of Louis Anquetin is also included at the MMFA's Toulouse-Lautrec exhibition. It is a print entitled At the Circus.
Click on images to enlarge them.
Hover your mouse over images for description and credits.
You can read about the Toulouse-Lautrec exhibition here.
You can also read my post about the two works by Théophile Steinlen which are also included in the MMFA's Toulouse-Lautrec exhibition here.
For more information, visit the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts website.
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