© COPYRIGHT by Danielle D. Sensabaugh 2015 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED To my parents. BETWEEN PAINTING AND POSTER: ARTISTIC AND CULTURAL HYBRIDITY IN HENRI DE TOULOUSE-LAUTREC’S PANELS FOR “LA GOULUE” BY Danielle D. Sensabaugh ABSTRACT My thesis focuses on Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s pendant paintings titled La danse au Moulin Rouge (Dance at the Moulin Rouge) and La danse mauresque (The Moorish Dance). These two works, collectively known as Les panneaux pour la baraque de La Goulue à la Foire du Trône (Panels for the fun fair booth of La Goulue at the Foire du Trône), have been underemphasized by scholars in part because they do not adhere to the hierarchies of value that have been established between fine art and the applied arts; nor do they support the much- mythologized image of Lautrec. Although Toulouse-Lautrec’s commercial accomplishments are widely recognized by scholars today, and contribute to his mythic persona as a bohemian artist steeped in the culture of Montmartre, his paintings continue to be privileged as the more “authentic” portion of his artistic output. Furthermore, the commissioning of these works by the cancaneuse “La Goulue” (Louise Weber) has also inhibited their study. A woman known for licentiousness on- and off-stage, La Goulue cannot be considered a conventionally feminist figure, and therefore has been denied the agency accorded to fellow popular dancers, such as Jane Avril and Loïe Fuller, who were also depicted by Toulouse-Lautrec and have received more scholarly attention. My study provides a comprehensive account of the panels, encompassing a range of questions raised by the works themselves and the biographical and historical contexts that produced them. Products of collaboration, the panels are evidence of La Goulue and Toulouse-Lautrec’s symbiotic relationship, one necessitated by the need to individualize and ii sensationalize oneself in order to achieve and maintain fame both within the Parisian art world and the entertainment industry. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to profusely thank Dr. Juliet Bellow for her words of encouragement and sage advice throughout the duration of this project, without which this would have seemed an insurmountable feat. In addition, I would like to thank Dr. Kim Butler Wingfield and Dr. Andrea Pearson for their constant support and guidance. Finally, thank you to my friends and colleagues Brittney Bailey, Caitlin Hoerr, and Kelley Daley. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................... ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................................................................................................. iv LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ......................................................................................................... vi INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................. 1 CHAPTER 1 THE DANCER AS PATRON: THE AGENCY OF LA GOULUE ............ 8 La Goulue’s “Disruptive Acts” ............................................................................. 12 Commodity Culture and the Display of Women .................................................. 17 Maintaining Spectacle: La Goulue’s Cultivation of a Public Image .................... 23 Collaboration: The “Queen of Montmartre” and her “peintre officiel” ................ 27 CHAPTER 2 BETWEEN PAINTING AND POSTER: TOULOUSE- LAUTREC’S MIXING OF MEDIA ................................................................................ 34 Panels as Poster ..................................................................................................... 36 Panels as Paintings ................................................................................................ 41 The Status of Posters and Paintings ...................................................................... 45 CHAPTER 3 DANCING ON THE FRINGE: CULTURAL OTHERNESS AND LA DANSE MAURESQUE ............................................................................................. 51 French Colonialism and the Expositions Universelles ......................................... 55 The Parisian Entertainment Industry: Appropriating the danse du ventre ........... 59 La danse mauresque: Embodying and Exploiting the Exotic ............................... 64 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................. 68 ILLUSTRATIONS ....................................................................................................................... 71 BIBLIOGRAPHY ......................................................................................................................... 74 v LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Figure 1: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, La danse au Moulin Rouge (Dance at the Moulin Rouge), 1895, oil on canvas, 3,160 x 2,980 mm, Paris, France: Musée D’Orsay .......................... 71 Figure 2: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, La danse mauresque (The Moorish Dance), 1895, oil on canvas, Paris, France: Musée d’Orsay .............................................................................. 71 Figure 3: Lunel, “Le Quadrille à L’Élysée Montmartre” in Le Courrier Français, 1889, illustrations ........................................................................................................................ 71 Figure 4: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Jane Avril, 1893, lithograph ............................................. 71 Figure 5: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, La Troupe de Madamoiselle Églantine, 1895, lithograph printed in three colors on machine wove paper, 27 7/16 x 31 ½ inches, New York, NY: Metropolitan Museum of Art ............................................................................................ 71 Figure 6: Ferdinand Bac, “Femmes automatiques: Ce qu’on y met, ce qu’il en sort,” La Vie Parisienne, 1892 ............................................................................................................... 71 Figure 7: Louis Victor Paul Bacard, La Goulue and Grille d’Egout bare-chested, c. 1885, albumen paper from a collodion glass negative pasted on cardboard, Paris, France: Musée d’Orsay .............................................................................................................................. 71 Figure 8: La Goulue wearing a Montmartre themed dress decorated with windmills, cats and mice ................................................................................................................................... 71 Figure 9: Louis Victor Paul Bacard, Series of photos of La Goulue seated in a chair at a table, 1885, albumen paper from a collodion glass negative pasted on cardboard, Paris, France: Musée d’Orsay .................................................................................................................. 71 Figure 10: Henri de Toulouse Lautrec, Moulin Rouge: La Goulue, 1891, lithograph, 74 13/16 x 45 7/8 inches, New York, NY: Metropolitan Museum of Art .......................................... 71 Figure 11: Henri de Toulouse Lautrec, La Goulue Entering the Moulin Rouge (La Goulue entrant au Moulin Rouge), 1891-92, oil on board, 31.25 x 23.25 inches, New York, NY: Museum of Modern Art .................................................................................................... 71 Figure 12: Louis Victor Paul Bacard, La Goulue frontally in a dance pose, c. 1885, albumen paper from a collodion glass negative pasted on cardboard, Paris, France: Musée d’Orsay ........................................................................................................................................... 71 Figure 13: Henri de Toulouse Lautrec, Miss Loïe Fuller, 1893, lithograph, 381 x 275mm, Chicago, IL: Art Institute of Chicago ............................................................................... 71 Figure 14: Isaiah West Tauber, La Loie Fuller, 1897, aristotype, Paris, France: Musée d’Orsay 71 vi Figure 15: Jules Chèret, Loïe Fuller at the Folies Bergère, 1893, lithograph, 48 1/2 x 34 1/2 in, New York, NY: Museum of Modern Art .......................................................................... 71 Figure 16: Jean de Paléologue (Pal), La Loïe Fuller, Folies Bergère, c. 1894, lithograph, 48 x 33 inches, Los Angeles, CA: Los Angeles County Museum of Art ...................................... 71 Figure 17: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, At the Music Hall: Loïe Fuller, 1892, oil on cardboard, 46 x 32 cm, private collection ................................................................................................ 71 Figure 18: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, At the Moulin Rouge: La Goulue and her Sister (Au Moulin Rouge: La Goulue et sa soeur), 1892, lithograph printed in six colors, 17 1/2 x 13 1/2 inches, New York, NY: The Metropolitan Museum of Art ........................................ 72 Figure 19: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, At the Moulin Rouge: Training the New Girls (At the Moulin Rouge: The Dance), 1890, oil on canvas, 45 1/2 x 59 inches, Philadephia, PA: Philadelphia Museum of Art ............................................................................................. 72 Figure 20: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Au Moulin Rouge (At the Moulin Rouge), 1892/1895, oil on canvas, 48 7/16 x 55 1/2 inches Chicago, IL: Art Institute of Chicago ....................... 72 Figure 21: Jules Chéret, Bal du Moulin Rouge, 1889, lithograph, 48 7/8 x 34 5/8 inches, Los Angeles, CA: Los Angeles County Museum