Toulouse-Lautrec at the Circus

"The Human Beast": Toulouse-Lautrec at the Circus

Amelia Salyers, Princeton Class of 2008

The dog, although up on its hind legs, hunches over, the curve of its pitifully emaciated body forming an “S”. With its blue bow and carefully groomed fur, it seems uncomfortable in its own skin, a very unnatural attitude for an animal. Looming over the pathetic figure is an imposing clown, his beefy proportions and scowling, ugly face providing an explanation for the dog’s misery. His whip - unfurled, slack, but ready at a moment’s notice — parallels the curve of his own shadow, creating a sinister connection to the less celebrated side of the circus. In fact, it must be rehearsal time because the normally crowded and rowdy stands lie silent and empty. The ring itself feels lifeless and deserted as only the clown, dog, and a stray elephant laboring on an up-turned barrel appear on its clear expanse. The drawing is unbalanced as the disconcerting scene of the one side plays to an audience of uninterrupted emptiness on the other. Entitled Clown Trainer (1899), it graphically parallels the literal barrenness of the empty seats with the emotional emptiness of the relationship between trainer and animal, deftly expressing the involuntary entrapment of the pathetic animals.

In fact, the creator of this drawing and about 50 others of a similar nature, the French artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, after suffering a total breakdown, was grappling with issues of entrapment. During the winter of 1899, Toulouse-Lautrec suffered a severe mental and physical collapse, due to uncontrolled alcoholism, chronic physical ailments, and exhaustion. While recovering at an upscale asylum outside of Paris, he drew a suite of circus drawings entirely from memory. For over a century, many critics have viewed these works as valuable only for their relevance to the artist’s recovery, not for any outstanding creative expression. For example, Gerstle Mack in his book Toulouse-Lautrec attributes the supposedly lower quality of these works to Toulouse-Lautrec’s notion that the doctors would release him if he could prove his sanity by drawing (Mack 220). Toulouse-Lautrec, however, had a stronger impetus behind these drawings then the mere need to impress his “captors.” Known for his caustic wit and ironical commentaries against even his closest friends throughout his career, his choice of a rehearsing circus as subject matter indicates a more complex motive. These drawings juxtapose the unnatural confinement of nature’s creatures with the disquietingly natural release of the whip-wielding “human beast”, as respected art critic and close friend of the artist Arsene Alexandre termed this recurrent aspect of Toulouse-Lautrec’s work (qtd Murray 272). To explore the “human beast” was to explore the baser instincts of human nature which man pretended did not exist. Toulouse-Lautrec utilized this inherent conflict underlying the circus to question not only his confinement but also his own “unnatural” position in society.