Tribute to Lautrec

This is a rare piece in my production, as it is a PhD project. I was asked to make a free interpretation of a work by a master I liked, and I chose the great draughtsman and painter Henry Toulouse-Lautrec.

In the picture you can see the famous dancer Jane Avril leaving the Moulin Rouge. I liked this image because it is a very different vision of what he used to represent, that is, partying, dancing, debauchery, sexuality, and ultimately, the atmosphere that was experienced in the Cabarets of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Jean Avril's face is serene, pensive, almost meditative.

In the original work, there are ways of applying paint that are typical of Impressionism. The floor is pointillist and the dancer's dress is made with long lines of paint. In my interpretation I used pigments with polyvinyl acetate and collage. The pieces of paper that I used at that time I got them at “El jueves”, which is a flea market held in Seville every week. I bought old books because I really liked the brown color of their pages. I tried to get that color in many ways, but none came close to the patina that time gives. In my interpretation I completely changed the colors. I turned the original yellow background into blue, and the blue into yellow. I closed the plane much more so that we could focus on the main figure. One of the differences between my work and Toulouse-Lautrec's is that in mine there is not so much background. What is important is her and her thoughts.

Technique: Acrylic and collage

Support: Wood

Measurements: 82 x 43.5 cm.

Date of completion: 1996