Explosive Acts: Toulouse-Lautrec, Oscar Wilde, Felix Feneon, and the Art & Anarchy of the Fin de Siecle

Great read, but it's the same book as another by the same author that is under a different title

I decided to pick up this book after I had read Mr. Sweetman's wonderful biography of Paul Gauguin. I was not disappointed. This is another excellent book. As the title lets you know right away, this is a book that is about much more than Toulouse-Lautrec, although he is the main subject. But even the cover doesn't begin to tell you the whole story. Inside you will find interesting and informative biographical sketches of many other people who moved in the literary and theatrical and artistic circles of turn of the century Paris. People such as: La Goulue, Jane Avril, Alfred Jarry, Andre Gide, Valentin Le Desosse, Yvette Guilbert and many, many others. It is a tribute to Mr. Sweetman's descriptive skills that after reading only a few pages about any one of these people you will want to go out and try to find a full biography! Besides dealing with personalities the author also widens his scope to write about the Dreyfus affair, anti-semitism, prostitution and sexually transmitted diseases, etc. Mr. Sweetman is a very thoughtful writer and he always gives you a balanced portrait of the people he writes about. Nothing is ever black or white. There are always shades of gray. Toulouse-Lautrec did a lot more than sit around the dance halls of Montmartre and get drunk, although many nights he did get drunk. And there was a lot more to his art than the widely reproduced posters he did of the Moulin Rouge and the Moulin De La Galette. Besides the fact that this book is beautifully written there is the bonus that it contains over 100 period photographs. They are fascinating and I have never seen the vast majority before. If you have any interest in art or in late 19th century Paris I have no doubt that you will enjoy this book. It is one of the best books I've read this year!

The subtitle of the Sweetman book, Explosive Acts, is "Toulouse-Lautrec, Oscar Wilde, Felix Feneon and the Art and anarchy of the Fin de Siecle". Sweetman has previously written a wonderful biography of Gauguin that I heartily recommend. This is a great book about a particular time and place rather than about a particular person. Sweetman begins with the discription of a huge canvas mural that Lautrec painted as a front wall for a "funfair" booth to be used by eccentric and exotic dancer "LaGoulue". As a framing device for the book, Sweetman explains the significance of the mural and points out real characters from the Paris/Montmartre socio-political scene in 1895 who are to be found in the foreground, including Wllde, Feneon, Lautrec himself, and others. Then Sweetman goes back and provides fascinating detail regarding the intertwining lives of all these people who knew each other at the fin de siecle. By the time he is finished the reader has a wonderful feel and appreciation for the time, the place, and the personalities of the various individuals involved. At the conclusion he comes back to the "funfair" booth and discusses the individual fates of the mural, La Goulue, Lautrec and the others. This is a wonderful read. Even if you don't consider Lautrec to be of the caliber of his more well-known contemporaries (Van Gogh, Degas, Gauguin, etc.), and even if you've already read Frey's well-researched biography of him, you'll find this book a fascinating analysis of a time and place you'd certainly like to if not live in, at least visit for a while.

A delightful read. David Sweetman follows up his biographies of Gaughin and Van Gogh with another masterpiece biography. This is not only a book about Toulouse-Lautrec and his art, but also a broad sweeping look at his time and place. We are transported back to the Moulin de Gallete and the Moulin Rouge, which were two of the great dancehalls of Fin de Siecle Paris. Lautrec, a pretender to noble birth, broke with the "prettiness" of the by then established Impressionists by painting and drawing the scenes around his table at the dancehalls and clubs in seedy Montmarte section of Paris. Lautrec went to great lengths to hide his louche activities from his prim and proper "aristocratic" doting mother even to the point of editing his painting for exhibitions to just proper portraits and leaving out the club scene paintings. She, as Sweetman suggests, was guilt ridden over her marriage to a 1st cousin when also her parents and her husband's parents were the results of close consanguinal marriages as well. This, Sweetman concludes, resulted in Lautrec's congenital defects and dwarfism. The text is sprinkled with interesting tidbits. We learn that the Can-Can is not the movie version, but a dance that was participated in by the customers as well. Why the scandalousness of the Can-Can? It isn't too hard to figure out when it is explained that the dancehalls hired men to police the dances making sure that the women had their knickers on. Many of the girls in the club were surviving their low paid day jobs by picking up customers in the clubs. Knowing that changes our reading when we see them gaze at men in Lautrec's paintings. In his mother's eyes, this was not a place for a man of Lautrec's breeding. Lautrec thrived on it.Even at 500 dense pages and epic in sweep, the book is highly readable. We get to meet Oscar Wilde, the chic anarchist Felix Feneon, and a host of other interesting characters. Valadon and Jane Avril make repeated entrances as lovers and friends of the now syphilitic Lautrec. We get to see the fashionable anarchist scene turn violent. We see Lautrec with his innovative posters (scandalizing his mother when they showed up on manure carts!) inventing modern day advertising. Sweetman makes the scene come alive, his research appears to be impeccable, and his critiques of Lautrec's art is on target. If you have any interest in art history at all, this is a must read book. I wish there was a 10 star rating!