Ball at the Moulin de la Galette

With this painting of the dance hall known as the Moulin de la Galette, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec established his reputation as the painter-chronicler of the entertainments of Montmartre. In this well-known image, Lautrec employed the wood barrier as a metaphorical divide between the frenzied action of the dance hall, seen as a blur in the background, and the stillness of the bored and waiting women (accompanied by a proprietary male) in the foreground. He used turpentine to thin his paint and applied it in loose washes, a technique known as peinture à l’essence. The result is a seemingly unfinished look that suggests both the immediacy of the artist’s observations and the dinginess of his subject. 

Happy Friday, everyone!