Art lecture Toulouse Lautrec

Dr Ger Jacobs give toe lecture at the senior citizens' association on a French aristocrat. The French aristocrat's work only flourished in the dubious backstreets of Paris.

He may have done the best portrait of Vincent van Gogh. In a Paris café, Henri de Toulouse Lautrec made a chalk drawing of the lonely, pensive Dutchman sitting at a table with a glass of absinth. They both lived to be 37, they were both concerned with the outcasts of society; ruthless and full of pity. They both knew a tragic life and both received the appreciation they deserved only after their deaths. The physically disabled artist worked in a studio in Montmartre in the late 19th century. In the city's nightlife, he found the freedom to paint what fascinated him: life itself, the people who interested him in an environment he knew. Actually, he painted the dubious milieus that only came alive in artificial light.