A very symbolic painting in terms of his feelings towards Carmen but also towards the direction he was heading to in his personal life is the painting Carmen Gaudin in the Artist’s Studio (1887). Painted after At Mountrouge, Rosa la Rouge, this painting takes us by surprise by seeming to break the trend began by the other paintings in terms of composition. Carmen is rendered in the center of the painting, seated, facing the viewer, and her look, unafraid to meet the eyes of the viewer, seem to carry a trace of regret and contempt at the same time, as though life has forced her into doing something she hadn’t wanted to do but could not avoid doing.
Even more intriguing is the display of canvases in the background. Seeming random at first glance, by taking a more careful look we can notice an interesting array. In the center-back, above Carmen’s head, is the painting of the artist’s mother created in 1883, The Countess of Toulouse-Lautrec, sitting in a park, dressed in white. Further to the front, to the right of Carmen, is the painting of a naked man with a beard who looks up to her as if he were a lost boy asking for directions. Although this setting can be interpreted as the painter’s carnal love for this model, perhaps what Lautrec was actually trying to express at a subconcious level was a deeper statement regarding his own identity and the direction that his life was taking. The placement of the canvas of the bearded naked man-whose resemblance to the painter is intriguing- between the painting of his mother and Carmen, might signify his view of his new lifestyle as a rebirth from aristocracy into Bohemia. Maybe what this display stands for is his awareness of the imminent break from his old lifestyle, and just as the man looks fearfully up to Carmen like a boy who finds himself out of his mother’s protective sight, perhaps Lautrec approaches his new lifestyle with the fear mingled with curiosity of someone in quest for his true, naked self. Therefore, as different from the other paintings of her as it may seem, this painting could actually serve as a further expression of his ambivalent feelings towards leaving behind his family ties and imminently approaching a way of life that might bring about his perdition, but from which he could not escape if he was to follow his passion for rendering the inside of the human soul.
Images:
Toulouse-Lautrec, Carmen Gaudin in Artist’s Studio, 1887. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Toulouse-Lautrec, The Countess A. de Toulouse-Lautrec, 1883. Museu de Arte, Sao Paolo, Brazil.