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Slide La Clownesse Lautrec   MMA

What of the morality & phiosophy of Toulouse Lautrec? There are those who said he had none. But that is the too easy answer for one who uses what might be called immoral subject matter such as this lithograph of the famous female clown, Cha-U-Kao, of the Moulin Rouge. 

Probably the Parisian night life of the 1890's was a degenerate as any in the western world. Perhaps it will seem too limited even as a special human interest to warrant mentioning. But I see it as emblematic of serial things & surely Toulouse Lautrec was one of the  humanitarians. He knew & understood a range of people both brilliant & unfortunate who were certainly no less human for being of the unconventional world, the theatre, the cabaret artistique & the dance hall. Lautrec looked for the truth in this. His honesty & his own situation made him understand any deformity, physical, social or spiritual in another & able to depict it with a sympathetic touch or an even greater perversity. 

An unfortunate pair of accidents in childhood had injured both his legs & permanently stunted them. The mid & body of a brilliant, passionate, witty & sensitive aristocrat, descendent of two old & noble families were thus put out to life. In the time Montmartre, the boulevards & alcohol furnished the distractions, but more importantly, the subject matter for penetrating, original, prodigious life work of paintings, posters, drawings & lithographs. 

Degas also knew & understood people. His portraits are very perceptive. Mary Cassatt was another. Their attuned to people was civilised, sympathetic, taking people where they found them good, ignoring any distressing evidences. They are part of a new cleavage that occurs among