Liberal Arts Blog — The Moulin de la Galette (Renoir), the Moulin Rouge (Toulouse Lautrec), the Folies Bergeres (Manet)
Liberal Arts Blog — Friday is the Joy of Art, Architecture, Design, Film, and All Things Visual Day
Today’s Topic — the Moulin de la Galette (Renoir). the Moulin Rouge (Toulouse Lautrec). the Folies Bergeres (Manet)
For decades, the painters of Parisian night life were something of a blur to me. As were the locales that they painted.What was the difference between the “Moulin de la Galette” and the “Moulin Rouge”? and between the “Folies Bergere” and the “Moulin Rouge”? Today, an attempt at clarity. Experts — please chime in. Correct, elaborate, elucidate.
EDOUARD MANET (1832–1883) — “Un Bar Aux Folies Bergere” (1882) — Courtauld, London
1. The Folies Bergere was a cabaret that first opened in as an opera house in 1869. It is located in the 9th arrondissement near the Opera Garnier. Its heyday was the 1890s. It’s most famous moment was perhaps the banana dance of African American Josephine Baker in 1928. (Bergere means shepherdess and was the name of a nearby street.)
2. Performers at the Folies Bergere have included the greatest American and French popular singers of the 20th century: from Maurice Chevalier, Edith Piaf, and Charles Aznavour to Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, and Elton John.
3. Manet’s “Un Bar Aux Folies Bergere” has raised an amazing volume of technical and philosophical controversy. Did Manet really understand perspective? What is the meaning of the mirror? The French philosopher has commented that the mirror is “‘the instrument of a universal magic that changes things into spectacles, spectacles into things, me into others, and others into me.”
NB: Three little details: the bowl of oranges suggests that the woman is a prostitute, the beer bottle with the red triangle in the lower right is Bass Pale Ale, a British beer indicative of the anti-Prussian sentiment in Paris in the 1880s, and in the upper right don’t miss the green shoes of a trapeze artist dangling over the crowd.
PIERRE AUGUSTE RENOIR (1841–1919) “Bal du Moulin de la Galette” (1876), Musee d’Orsay, Paris
1. Located in the Montmartre district in Paris, The “Moulin de la Galette” was an actual windmill that dates back to 1622 and was saved from destruction in 1914. Two highlights in its history: during both the Napoleonic Wars (1814) and the Franco Prussian War (1871) the miller was killed and nailed to the wings of the windmill. The “galette” refers to a brown bread baked with the flour from the mill. It was originally eaten with milk. When the mill became a cabaret in 1830, wine replaced the milk. A place for eating, drinking, dancing rather than for spectacle.
2. To many, the “Bal du Moulin de la Galette” is the highlight of the Musee d’Orsay in Paris. And that’s saying an awful lot. The painting is large (52 inches by 69 inches) and the vibrancy of the colors is breathtaking.
3. The windmill ifself has been painted by many other artists including, most famously Van Gogh and Toulouse Lautrec.
NB: Montmartre is to the north of the opera district and a seedier part of town. At the top of the hill which gives the neighborhood its name is the Church of the Sacre Coeur, accessible by funicular. Artists with studios in Montmartre included: Monet, Renoir, Van Gogh, Picasso, Modigliani, Degas, Pissarro….Great views of Paris from the top of the hill.
HENRI DE TOULOUSE LAUTREC (1864–1901) “Moulin Rouge: La Goulue” (1891)
1. The “Moulin Rouge,” opened in 1889, the same year as the Eiffel Tower (the hundredth anniversary of the French Revolution). It was the “Red Windmill” for the Red Light district in Paris at the base of Montmartre. That district is called “Pigalle” and its reputation has not changed. The “Red WIndmill” was never a real windmill. It was all about the exotic dancers — such as “La Goulue” in the lithograph above.
2. Two oil paintings by Toulouse Lautrec that feature “Moulin Rouge” in their titles are: “At the Moulin Rouge” (1892–1895) and “At the Moulin Rouge, the Dance” (1890). See the 13th and 14th links below.
3. The most legendary dancers of the “Moulin Rouge” were La Goulue “The Glutton” (1866–1929) Jane Avril (1868–1943), and Mistinguett (1875–1956).
NB: Other artists to paint can-can dancers included Georges Rouault, Georges Seurat, and Pablo Picasso.
Manet, A Bar at the Folies-Bergère (video) | Khan Academy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folies_Berg%C3%A8re
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_de_Toulouse-Lautrec
At the Moulin Rouge, The Dance
YOUR TURN
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