Cuirassier 1881

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec made this painting, Cuirassier, with oil on canvas. The way that Lautrec has applied the oil paint is very gestural. Look at the thick, almost sculptural, brushstrokes that give texture and movement to the scene. He uses impasto, applying the paint so thickly that you can almost feel the energy and speed of the rider and the horse. The visible brushwork isn't just about representation, it's about expression, an index of the artist's own hand, and the tools he employed. Consider too, the social context. Lautrec was an aristocrat painting a soldier, yet he was also deeply engaged with the lives of ordinary people, especially performers and those on the margins of society. His art often blurred the lines between high and low culture. The very materiality of the paint, and Lautrec's handling of it, speaks to the historical moment when the individual artist's touch became as important as the subject being depicted. It's a shift that elevated painting from craft to high art, yet in Lautrec's hands, there's always a sense of the messy, the human, the real.