Talk:Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article falls within the scope of WikiProject Visual arts, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to visual arts on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
??? Class: This article has not been assigned a class according to the assessment scale.
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography. For more information, visit the project page.
Biography Portal
B This article has been rated as B-Class on the project's quality scale. [FAQ]
Other languages WikiProject Echo has identified Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec as a foreign language featured article. You may be able to improve this article with information from the Chinese language Wikipedia.

Contents

[edit] Biography assessment rating comment

The article may be improved by following the WikiProject Biography 11 easy steps to producing at least a B article. -- Edofedinburgh 11:04, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

France Portal
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec is within the scope of WikiProject France, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to France on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please join the project and help with our open tasks.
B This article has been rated as B-Class on the Project's quality scale.
(If you rated the article please give a short summary at comments, explaining the ratings and/or suggest improvements.)


[edit] Age

"At age 13 he fractured his left thigh bone, and at 14 his right thigh bone..."

From what I've read, Lautrec broke his left thigh bone at 12 and used a can when he was thirteen, breaking his other thigh at 14. I have changed this, but anyone who wants to prove me wrong, feel free!

Also... "...was always accepted in spite of his short stature."

I don't think this is a true statement, as he was often made fun of because of his height.

I was going to punctuate this sentence properly, but I'm not sure what was meant: "he was a very odd man when it come to speaking well actually he DIDNt speak." Could someone elaborate? Does it mean (a) he was a peculiar character and (b) he didn't talk very much? Peter Harriman 21:34, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Genetic Defect

Genetic defects do not arise because of inbreeding. They are more commonly found in inbreed families because many genetic defects need two pairs of the same gene to become active. THIS is why it's healthier not to marry your sister or first cousin. Inbreeding does not cause genes to mutate and become defected contrary to popular myth.

[edit] Height

1.5m isn't 4 1/2 ft - any idea what the real height was? Iancaddy 19:01, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Height Answer

1.5m is 4.92126ft. So he was close to 5 foot.

[edit] School help

how is Lautrec's full name pronouced.

[edit] Pronunciation key

äNrē' du tOOlOOz' lōtrek'
as taken from http://www.factmonster.com/ce6/people/A0849149.html I'll take the liberty of adding this to the article until someone says i messed it up and corrects me =D

Heaven knows what pronunciation system that's supposed to be. In any case it's wrong in showing stress marks (French doesn't have syllabic stress). I've replaced it with IPA (per MoS). Vilĉjo 09:48, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Chinese version

Note that the Chinese version of this article is a front-page featured article today. Perhaps someone who speaks Chinese and English could see if there's material and sources that could be brought over? -Harmil 15:51, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Depiction in films

I suggest the section be retitled "Depiction in media", since it covers TV, too. William Moates 09:42, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Possible vandalism?

Disfiguration Section, last sentence.

On the other hand, he had hypertrophied genitals as some of his photos prove[citation needed].

?? --DanlyOmil 02:21, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

A legitimate question, but I've read this in bios on Lautrec. I just need to relocate for the necessary citation. JNW 02:29, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Alrighties thank you! :) It just kind of caught me as a strange thing to add in there. --DanlyOmil 03:52, 6 October 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Pornography

The lewd expression on this man's face as he picks up the soiled linen from a brothel, while a business-like female stands with her receipt book in hand is the nearest thing to porn that I have ever seen in T-L's work.
The lewd expression on this man's face as he picks up the soiled linen from a brothel, while a business-like female stands with her receipt book in hand is the nearest thing to porn that I have ever seen in T-L's work.

This statement has been drawn directly from a web article. It should be in parenthesis. It is a very precise statement. But it occurs within a news article that does not concern the artists work, beyond this sentence. The article is aboout his medical condition. One presumes that the writer is a journalist not an expert in the subject of his art. This information must have come from somewhere, previous to the article.

Throughout his career, which spanned less than 20 years, Toulouse-Lautrec created 737 canvases, 275 watercolors, 363 prints and posters, 5,084 drawings, 300 pornographic works, some ceramic and stained glass work, and an unknown number of lost works.[1]

What I am questioning is the use of the term "pornography". I have never seen a pornographic drawing by Toulouse-Lautrec. Paintings of his that have been cited as erotica are singularly un-erotic drawings of two women in bed with the covers drawn up so that the only hint of interaction is a smile which could be described as "loving".

The whole point about T-L's pics is that they are not erotic. He was actually commissioned to produce a series of pics of prostitutes, and they were such down-to-earth, sympathetic, and realistic pictures of these "working women" that the agent was disappointed and couldn't sell them. Nowhere did the artist show the women at work, or even looking out of the picture coquettishly. They are shown combing their hair, chatting between clients and standing in line looking tired and bored while waiting for an STD inspection.

I can only imagine that the reason why the word "pornography" has been used is that it means, literally, "writing about prostitutes". In the most literally sense these pictures of prostitutes are pornography. They are about prostitutes. But integral to the common meaning of the word "pornography" is the sense that someone or something is being prostituted or exploited. These pictures prostitute and exploit no-one. I am intending to change the way it is written, unless someone can come up with examples of genuinely pornographic art by this artist.

Amandajm (talk) 04:56, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm with you, Amanda. Go for it. JNW (talk) 04:59, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
If memory serves, there is at least one work (and possibly more) of a prostitute pleasuring a colleague, but, as you note, the motive is not pornographic, and such a characterization strikes me as misleading. JNW (talk) 05:06, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
The author of the NYTimes article is Natalie Angier a Pulitzer Prize winning scientific journalist who I'm sure isn't an art historian or an expert on Lautrec or on pornography either. I noticed that remark the other day and I agree it should be modified. Maybe works of a sexual nature, or pictures of bordellos or something along a different tack then straight out pornography. Modernist (talk) 14:03, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
JNW, I recall the work to which you are referring. I don't think it counts as porn. However I suppose there is a possibility of a whole group of pics which haven't been reproduced. Amandajm (talk) 21:47, 11 March 2008 (UTC)