Jane Avril: Spectacle and Spectator in the Art of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Arts
HAVC 190R
The advent of modern celebrity and advertising culture in late-Nineteenth century Paris further complicated the already unsteady position of the female performer in regards to traditional roles and expectations for women, allowing them even greater freedom and space in public sphere. This essay looks at a range of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s works that depict the dancer Jane Avril in order as an example of the ways this shift in gender dynamics was viewed and interpreted at the time. Toulouse-Lautrec’s works with Avril play with unconventional depictions of looking and spectatorship within the context of gender, performance, and spectacle in unusal ways, while also critically examining the complicated medium of advertising, which both liberated and objectified the performers that were promoted.
