Getty Museum

Le Moulin Rouge

Date

1891

Medium

Pastel and charcoal, on paper

Culture

French

Department

Drawings

Institution

Getty Museum

Pressed tight against the picture plane, a young woman wearing a large hat lifts her billowing underskirts. With her foreshortened, black-stockinged leg raised to the height of her shoulders, she performs the famous *chahut*, a popular dance of Paris's renowned nightclubs. Neon yellow pastel outlines her delicate profile, hair, and hands, evoking the glow of stage lights. The viewer looks into her petticoat to read--as if part of the swirling lace--the words *Tous les soirs Mercredi Et Samedi Grande Fete* (Every night/Big Party on Wednesdays and Saturdays) highlighted in white pastel. Behind her shoulders, male members of the audience watch from the left. The background pulsates with color and movement: silhouetted against a purple ground, the words *Moulin Rouge* (Red Mill) in greenish pastel seem to expand outward toward the crossed red lines decorated with peach-colored balls, which indicate the illuminated blades of the windmill. This emblem decorated the facade of the brassiest nightclub in Montmarte, the Moulin Rouge; Pierre Bonnard made this highly worked pastel drawing as a finished study for a poster advertising the club.

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