Moulin Rouge: La Goulue

Location: Paris, France

Links:

• https://www.musee-toulouse-lautrec.com/en/Links to an external site.
• https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/333990Links to an external site.

Examining The Questions:

• How does design influence societal perceptions of socioeconomic class?
• How does modern printing demonstrate shifts in global design practices?

Examination:

Modern printing demonstrates the shifts in global design practices through the increased usage of mass-printed images. These are used for advertising, entertainment, and consumer culture. Heri de Toulouse-Lautrec's 'Moulin Rouge: La Goulue' demonstrates this shift through its use of color lithography to advertise the Moulin Rouge nightclub in Paris. The poster was designed to attract attention and promote the nightclub and its performers (in this case, La Goulue). Rather than being created for private viewing, this was intended to be seen as an advertisement for large audiences, being displayed publicly. This shows how advances in print allowed graphic design to become more integrated into everyday city life. The poster was printed using color lithography across multiple sheets of paper, allowing it to reach larger scales, and ultimately reach a larger audience.

The poster also demonstrates how modern design practices further developed through the cultural exchange of ideas. The piece uses flattened sections of color, outlines, and silhouettes rather than trying to realistically convey the image. These qualities relate to the influence of Japanese practices on European artists and designers during this period of time. This demonstrates how modern graphic design and print developed through global and cultural exchanges. The shift in global practice is seen through distribution of specific styles and methods observed in certain cultures into other parts of the world.

This example also connects to how design influences societal perceptions of socioeconomic class. The Moulin Rouge brought together people from different classes of Parisian society. The poster visually represents this environment. Instead of individually representing each member of the audience, Lautrec depicts them as a row of dark silhouettes, unifying them as simply "the audience" and not reducing them to just their economic status. By mass printing this work, the idea of unification regardless of class was able to be spread around the city of Paris, influencing the ideas that people may have had about socioeconomic class. Previous works I've explored have depicted people as their status, enforcing ideas that class is who a person is, but this work challenges that idea by depicting everyone the same regardless of class.