Ballet Dancers
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

Welcome To My Art Studio

I like walking around The Loop. And as I was making myself at home in the downtown area, I found it useful to have a membership at the Art Institute of Chicago, so as to have an automatic safe harbour during inclement weather. Or as I once told a fellow patron, who I don't think believed me, "I joined so I'd have access to decent restrooms when I was walking around, as much as anything else."

But in truth, use of restrooms, a warm place to sit, and free coffee, tea, or glass of sugared creamer ("Extra-extra cream, extra-extra sugar, no coffee, thank you") are all wonderful side benefits of a membership at The Art Institute of Chicago... as is looking at the art. I suppose, one must mention the art. Though, if I wanted to be snide, I would then casually mention how little Art The Institute hosts. And then, go off on a tirade about how Modern Art is not Art; Contemporary Art has long since left the scene; and Abstract Impressionism is where it all fell apart. But I have made peace with the fact that most Art sucks, just as most moments in life are completely unremarkable. I suppose all those moments could be remarkable. But as the one experiencing it all, I'd have to try too F'ing hard. So, no thanks. And by the same token, I haven't the patience to treat Pure Schl©'ck! (please see The Modern Wing) as anything more than it appears.

But once again, somehow the words have gotten away from me. I'd actually decided to join The Art Institute (become a member, with all the perks such a membership entails) prior to moving back to Chicagoland. And in truth, I'd expected to become a member of all The Great Museums. And The Art Institute just happened to be the first one I joined... on account of its central location to the loop for reasons already explained.

Anyhow, being a member, I decided to push the limits. Because, why not? And along with filling up on sugared cream (hold the coffee) and availing myself of countless lectures (why are these free events not continually packed full to capacity), at some point I decided to look at a piece of art or two... and from there, study a piece of art or two.

To be sure, I like Ballet Dancers. But if one is wondering why I chose to study Ballet Dancers over Jackson Pollock's Masterpiece (is it #37 or #58, I have no idea), the reasons are twofold:

• First, Ballet Dancers is centrally located.
• It's located in The Impressionist Wing.
  • And The Impressionist Wing (if that's what they call this Hallway) connects the Old Part of the Museum (The Masters and so forth, and by Masters, I mean, The Real Masters, and not some joker like Warhol) and the New Wing (where that upstart Warhol has taken up residence). Now, this might not seem so important, but if one had a membership and was ducking into the museum to take a crap as much as anything else (and from there, was just planning on cutting through the building as they got from Point A to Point B elsewhere in the city, because doing so would avail them of a few minutes of AC or Heat, depending upon the weather), The Impressionist Wing is centrally located and almost always on the way, whereas Pollock's stuff requires a dedicated trip up two flights of stairs to the third level.
    • Wow!
    • That's a long aside.
    • Sorry!
    • I forgot I was putting together a bullet point list.
• Secondly, when I was selecting paintings, a bench was located right smack dab in front of Ballet Dancers.
• Now, to be fair, #32 (or whatever it is called) has a bench in front of it, as well.
• But I think I may have mentioned the two flights of stairs...
  • Tall Stairs!
  • Double Length Stairs!
  • The kind of stairs that enable a grand hallway (I think it's technically called Griffin Court, but I'm hardly going to look it up) to have a such a magnificent echoing open-air feel.
    • Visit Today!
    • Better yet, why not join?
      • Then, you can use our clean restrooms whenever you are in the neighbourhood...
      • Avail yourself of free coffee...
        • It's not supposed to be free creamer, dude...
      • Check your coat for free...
        • A perk which is more important in the winter than a guy from Hawaii might have any idea...
      • And get (mostly free) access to world class programming.
    • Talk to a Customer Service Specialist, Today!

Anyhow, those (above, being the same as these three below) are the real reasons I chose this particular work.

• Aesthetic Appeal
• Convenient Location
• A Freakin' Bench

Between The Field Museum, The Adler Planetarium, The Shedd Aquarium, and The Art Institute, I can easily affirm that The Art Institute has the crappiest, most thinly spaced benches out of the lot. Though, in The Art Institute's defence, I will say there are comfy seats down in the Member's Lounge (why not join, today), a nice dark gallery down oriental ways (sorry, I don't know the formal name of the room, but it is really cool, quiet, and secluded, so an ideal place to spend a few moments and escape the heat on a warm summer day), and very nice (as in, very nice) chairs are available in Griffin Court, while off The Court, in an almost unknown gallery, they show videos (such tripe) and almost everywhere a video is playing at The Institute a bench or chair can be found nearby.

In short, my membership cost something like $99 for the year, and assuming I make 20-25 visits to The Art Institute of Chicago in a Year, that's $4-5 per visit that I am forking over. And at that level (of highway robbery, robbery, I tell you), I think I should be able to drag a recliner (of the comfy chair variety) in front of the painting of my choice, kick back, take a nap, and have a warm glass of sugared creamer waiting for me whenever I awaken.

Um, the above is random doggerel and should not be taken seriously... or as a serious metaphoric commentary on Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.

I mean, if I had to guess (fine, alright already, I'll give it a go), I would guess that Monsieur Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was short of stature, rich of banknote, liked the absinthe, and that the love of dancing girls would be the death of him. But it's just a guess. And if the first factoid is wrong, there is little reason to believe any of the other point facts come close to describing any reality... yours, mine, or that of Henri D's.

Besides, he's dead, so he can't be slandered, the little sh!te.

And since I would be more than happy (thrilled, in fact) to be insulted by some wealthy near-midget with a substance abuse problem a hundred years hence, I can only surmise Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, in turn, would be tickled pink to know that some gangly old man, poor of banknote, who liked the chocolate, and knew that legalized marijuana would soon be the death of him took an interest in one of his paintings because he needed a place to sit after a long walk on such a winter's day.

So, um, yeah.

That's the project, that's what I'm doing here.

I hope you enjoy... and I hope you have a back-up plan if you reference any of my 'facts' in that doctoral thesis of yours.

'Yeah, I'm going to have to flunk you. Sorry.'

As one might expect from a painting called Ballet Dancers, there is a string of Ballet Dancers cutting diagonally up the picture with a pair of conductor's hands in the lower right, directing the action.

I'll call the colors a fractal composite of white, blue, and sea green. But those are just words. The paint is light. And although I cannot recall enough to be sure (this page being written months and months after my last meaningful inspection of the painting in person), I think it is a safe guess (but don't bet on it) that the white is merely raw canvas, the paint pigments being scraped thinly over the top.

My notes (from way back when), indicate why I found the painting captivating (you know, why I decided to study this particular piece rather than the one next to it or any other nearby object de art that just so happened to have a bench strategically placed in front of it), in that I can easily interpret the conductor as a magician, as he endlessly duplicates the dancers.

I count seven dancers... maybe eight. The first off screen, the third most prominent. And since I am big on lists, these are my descriptions of those dancers from lower left to upper right.

1. Gone
2. The Ideal
3. Monstrous Mockery
4. Fading Fast
5. Disappearing
6. Only The Beauty Remains
7. Whisper Of Smoke
8. Fades Into The Background

I doubt much has been learned by reading the listing. But it is such listings that make up the backbone of any project like this... and if not listings (per se), it is observations, which are almost always list-like, the transition from one idea to the next often tentative, at best.

For instance, in my notes (as I am letting my notes guide these ramblings), I indicate that it is only here that I learned the name of this work (and a piece of work it is), taking a snapshot of both the painting (for reference) and the placard, so as to insure I would be fully informed during any future write-up, as to both the provenance and particulars of Ballet Dancers by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.

Um, in the above, the facts are the facts and the rest consists of random ramblings. Meaning "Henry! Oh! Oh! Henry!" as the ladies used to call him died in his 37^th year, probably from some disease easily treatable today... such a loss.

Anyways, in regard to the Placard Information, we have (as they typically have at The Institute):

• Name
• Missing Nicknames
• Missing Preferred Pronouns
• Nationality
• Is this important?
• I mean, prior to thinking of myself as an American, I think of myself as:
  • Handsome!
  • Gorgeous!
  • Good Looking!
  • Smart!
  • An Intellectual!
  • And An Anarchist!
    • You know, if I were a joiner.
• Besides, isn't the moniker Impressionist far more important to our interpretation of this work?
• "How dare you call me a Frenchman, you swine dog. Viva le Revolucion!"
  • But really, I just like seeing how many times I can imply my readers are swine dogs before it hurts my numbers.
• Life Span
• It wasn't great.
• So, um, tee-hee, laugh-laugh, may we say it was as short as his stature?
• Eh, I probably should look that up and confirm Two Toe was a particularly short guy.
  • But I won't.
  • If he's got a problem with it, when I'm dead, he can come down and visit me in Hell.
    • "May you burn for all eternity, for it is you who is the swine dog, Monsieur Poof Ball! Ha! See? de Henri is purposeful with the mispronunciation. How does it feel, now, Puff Ball Brains? Not good, Le Monsieur Lautrec can bet."
• Title
• Would it surprise you to learn that Untitled is the most popular name for a piece of art?
• Me, I'm going to call this web-page Kanjin #54 just to mess with the historians.
• When
• Eh, who knows?
• Materials
• Actually, the material list for this particular painting is pretty interesting.
  • 'Oil on plaster, transferred to canvas'
  • Don't ask me the rationale for this.
  • Maybe, he was high.
• Description
• I've come to loath Artistic Descriptions.
• First, Art should stand on its own.
  • And if it can't, the description needs to be part of the Art...
    • Or it's simply Bad Art.
• Second, they tend to be a mixture (and an annoying mixture at that) of mind-numbing banality and stupefying intello-doublespeak.
  • And just to prove me wrong, the real commentary (yes, the stuff I wrote above is fake, but the actual placard) explains how this was originally a wall decoration.
    • No doubt in some dive bar the midget frequented.
    • A fact which explains that whole 'oil on plaster, transferred to canvas' mystery.
• Some Donor
• Sorry, I don't play that game.
• #1.#2
• #1 is the year in which The Art Institute acquired the work.
• #2 is the item number for the year.
• So, this piece was the 571^st piece of Art (I mean, if you want to call this Art) that The Art Institute of Chicago acquired in Our Year of the Lord 1931.

I pretty much never read placards. But I felt that I should have the information available while writing this page. Besides, with a name like Toulouse, I'm liable to remember it as YouLouse, ToYouLouse, ToYouLouise, and so on and so forth, until a name like Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (and what a name that is) gets jiggled around until it becomes a note tucked into a basket, which also, just so happens to contain a baby, left outside some back-room whorehouse door, which reads:

To Louise
Enclosed, please find your new baby boy, whom we have taken the liberty of naming Henri on your behalf.
Best Wishes
Lou T. Wreck, esq.

Eh, the wording is not as witty as I would like. So if you are disappointed in the aside, I am going to have to ask you to take it upon yourself to improve the joke... or just carry on and pretend it never happened.

Yes.

Perhaps, that would be best.

Or, I know, I can change the subject completely and throw out a few (or to be more precise two) random theories regarding what is going on in the painting.

But first (and to reiterate), for the normals in the audience, Ballet Dancers appears to be a painting whose subject matter consists of a chorus line or string of ballet dancers (please, call them ballerinas), kicking it up ("Show some leg, baby!") under the direction of some off-screen conductor's hands.

But is it?

Is that what's really going on?

I think (though, the medications are helping to keep that from happening) the light green represents magic (as it so often does in these Impressionistic Paintings), which the 'Conductor' (more formally a Witch or Wizard, given the actuality of the situation) is taking from Her (The Source), in order to complete, charge, and/or bring to animated life The Series of Sexy Simulacrums, which form the focus of this painting.

Eh, that's probably not clear.

Imagine an X-Rated interpretation of Disney's Fantasia and one might come close.

And for the second theory (as promised, for I promised two, if you'll remember), we continue the musings of the first (theory), wherein the Conductor (though, I think we have established that he is an Evil Sorcerer of the most depraved sort) is holding the primary (Dancing Elvin Lass, I think I may have mentioned) steady (so, like, she is being held in a magical stasis field) with the black pointer (please, call it a wand, clearly a thinly disguised allusion to the viewer's libido), as the blue (left hand) casually discards the rejects... much as modern gallery goers disregard the depth of experience (virtual or otherwise) to be found in the objects before them.

"OK. We've got dinner reservations for six. I want to drop by The Bean on the way back to the hotel, so we should leave here by five," which is when The Institute typically closes, so how convenient is that. "It's three o'clock now, giving us... um, carry the one... convert to seconds. Ah. OK. So, we have over a thousand pieces of art to look at in roughly two hours, sans any potty breaks or forays into the cafe for liquid refreshment, giving us about ten seconds per Object de Art. You like that? It's French, honey. Look at me, I'm cultured. Anyway, best not spend too much time with any one piece. Ha! Look at that poor sap over there. He hasn't moved since we got here. If he doesn't watch out, he'll have spent his entire day staring at the same stupid painting. Oh, darn. Making that wry observation has cost us fifteen seconds. We'll have to make it up somewhere. Ah, I know. We'll cut out that Jackson Pollock crap. Besides, it's up on the third floor and I'm already tired. Hey, honey! Wait up! Is it time for the next gallery, already?"

Someday, I may do a write-up on Georges-Pierre Seurat's A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, in which case I should time how long folks (on average) spend in the room and the time-interval on average between mentions of Ferris Bueller's Day Off from the crowd at large.

But for the moment, that is neither here nor there. What is here (and therefore, what was there) is that this is where I broke on my notes during that first sitting.

But that mattered not, as my project was off and running.

We are almost done!

There is a sort of outline notation that I use for my notes, sometimes. And that's what I did for the following. It's a sketchy sort of rough idea format, intended to convey primary meanings without requiring much effort on my part. So if anything is unclear, I only have myself to blame.

Anyway, each grouping represents a separate sitting. And since I'd already paused before the painting twice before, we are at:


The Third Sitting

• Spoiled.
• As they come down the line.
• Storm Clouds hanging above.
• Death the Constant Companion.
• The hands.
• So phallic.
• So gay.
• The dancers.
• Only half trying.
• The paint bleeds.
• It was applied thin.
• And wet.
• Just like I like my ballerinas.
• There is an emptiness surrounding the wand.
• Magic is never all that.
  • Especially when examined closely.
• Did I notice the ghoul in the (upper left) corner, before?
• Frankenstein longing.
• Or a puppeteer.
• All on his own.
• Like Oz.
• The power behind the mask.
• I should make a line drawing of the face.
• {Note to Self: Look in photographs.}
• {Right Back at You: I will be forgoing the creation of any further drawings.}
• Duelling Wizards!
• This latest (the guy in the upper left) plucks them.
• Right before they lose their soul.
• Well, it sounds good.
  • If the opposite of what I mean.

The Fourth Sitting

• The magicians are both working off the same original.
• One forward.
• One backward.
• Eight ballerinas.
• I count from a distance.
• The same eight close up.
• 1 - 6 - 1.
• With the last implied.
• Yeah, I can see this more and more as a battle between two players over the same girl.
• I find it much harder to interpret as a passage of time.
• Or multiple dancers.
• Maybe I should end this here.
• Find a different face to caricaturize, next time.

The Fifth Sitting

• I saw a Wizard eye in the center.
• Almost first thing.
• It, too, is looking at the real thing.
• The true ballerina.
• I am not willing to believe the eye is intentional.

The Sixth Sitting

• Zuit.
• Z.
• Umlaut U.
• I.
• T.
• And thus, we see the limitations of my note-taking system.
• I wonder if the word means anything.
• I think I will wait (before I stare into the painting further) and see.

And doing a search for the term ('Zuit') online comes back with Zoot Suit, which is likely what I was thinking of at the time. Certainly, it is what came to mind prior to my search.

Thus ends my exploration of this painting.

Maybe, I will take the walk up to the third floor next time and sit in front of Pollock's stuff for awhile.

Yeah. No. It really is too far to walk.