Gail Gauthier's Blog: Gail Gauthier Reads - Posts Tagged "art"

A local museum has a Toulouse-Lautrec exhibit that I've been thinking of visiting for a while. Years ago, I went to a Van Gogh exhibit at the National Gallery of Canada. I was by myself because the rest of the family went off to some military museum. I walked into the gallery and there on the wall across from me was a painting of a vase of irises. I was quite stunned by the idea that Van Gogh had touched a painting that I was so close to. It wasn't so much that he'd painted it, it was that he had touched it while doing so.
So I always hope for that same jolt when I go to see an exhibit of the works of someone I've heard of.

I'm busy, though, and I don't know a lot about Toulouse-Lautrec, so I wasn't in a rush to get there. But, then, this past week I started reading Sacre Bleu by Christopher Moore. It's a marvelous combination of historical novel, comedy, and fantasy. And Toulouse-Lautrec appears as a secondary character.

What's more, the book is illustrated with paintings by a number of late nineteenth century French artists. A lot of the paintings are Toulouse-Latrec's. That got me to the museum.

The exhibit is called "Toulouse-Lautrec and His World," and includes 150 works on paper--posters, sketches, illustrations from magazines and books. I didn't have any profound Van Gogh experience. I carried my library copy of Sacre Bleu, and found two of the illustrations from the book on the wall of the museum. In addition, because this exhibit was about Toulouse-Lautrec's world, there were write ups about Montmarte, the setting of the book I'm reading, references to red-haired women, who appear in the book, and material about Toulouse-Lautrec's relationships with the women of the clubs and brothels he frequented. Which we get a lot of in the book, too.

I can't wait to get back to reading.