Toulouse Lautrec Again

I think this year must be regarded as the year of Henri Toulouse Lautrec. 

You will recall that we went to his childhood home, Le Bosc, back in the summer. Inspired by this visit we read a biography and yesterday we made a return visit (we first went several years ago) to the museum in Albi dedicated to his work. His family had a house in Albi, one of several throughout France, and his mother donated much of his work to the city.

Actually Toulouse Lautrec was not the reason we made the pilgrimage. As you know John is very interested in oriental art and calligraphy in particular. A few weeks ago we went to a gallery in Rodez to see an exhibition of the Japanese Gutai school. We found this style not to our liking, although I have noted that John is using some of their techniques. (Since the "studio" has moved to the porcherie I can get a sneak preview of developments. I couldn't climb into the loft when it was up there!)

Subsequently John discovered that there was an exhibition at the Toulouse Lautrec museum of work by another "famous" (presumably just in the art world) Japanese artist Yu-ichi Inoue. Apparently he was revered for his free interpretation of calligraphy and contemporary work. We know that the phrase "a child of five could have done that" is a cliche but it certainly summed up his work as far as we were concerned.

However all was not lost. It was a beautiful autumn day to drive through the Aveyron Gorge to Albi.

We had a fabulous lunch and we really appreciated our second viewing of Toulouse Lautrec's work as we knew far more about it after reading his biography.