Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec quotes

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was a French painter and illustrator celebrated for his vivid depictions of Parisian nightlife. His works capture the bohemian spirit of Montmartre and the world of cabarets, dancers, and performers. He became a key figure of Post-Impressionism and left a lasting legacy in art and poster design. Here are 18 of his quotes:

I have tried to do what is true and not ideal.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

I have always been a pencil.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

Love is a disease which fills you with a desire to be desired.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

In our time there are many artists who do something because it is new; they see their value and their justification in this newness. They are deceiving themselves; novelty is seldom the essential. This has to do with one thing only; making a subject better from its intrinsic nature.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

Love is when the desire to be desired takes you so badly, that you feel you could die of it!

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

Of course one should not drink much, but often.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

A professional model is like a stuffed owl. These girls are alive.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

I can't do it, I can't do it. I simply can't help turning a deaf ear to it and banging my head against the wall - yes - and all for an art that escapes me and will never know all the trouble I have taken on its behalf.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

I'm very much alone all day, I read a litle but, in the long run, it gives me a headache. I draw and paint as much as I can, indeed till my hand grows tired, and when night begins to fall I hope Jeanne d'Armagnac [his cousin] will come to my bedside. She does sometimes, and cheers me up and plays with me, and I listen to her talk, without daring to look at her. She is so tall and so beautiful! And I am neither tall nor beautiful.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

When my pencil starts moving, it must be allowed its head or - bang! - nothing more happens.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

There are two young Englishmen in the next rooms to ours who are superb; their two sisters, looking like umbrellas, are here too, dressed in pink, with a little friend in blue with red hair. She is a type I have tried to draw on horseback but have not succeeded.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

Lautrec was still satisfying his rather classical art-teacher Cormon in Paris. The unreal conventions of Cormon imposed and discouraged him, according to Henri Perruchot.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

I could never have believed that such kindness existed: to receive my wretched drawings and then thank me into the bargain. And you need not be so scrupulous about my drawings. Just use those you like.... But, I am madly, crazily happy at the thought that your prose [Devismes novel 'Cocotte'], like so many fireworks, will frame my daubs, that you should have offered me a helping hand on the arduous road towards getting known...

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

Love is when the desire to be desired takes you so badly, that you feel you could die of it! [And then probably with a fourth sniff as a break] Eh? What? Isn't that so, my dear chap?

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

I am quite incapable of doing them [making landscapes], even the shadow. My trees look like spinach and my sea like heaven knows what.... [the Mediterranean landscape was] the devil to paint, precisely because it is so beautiful.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

The Mirlitons in the Place Vendôme, opposite the column! What a crush! A lot of people, a lot of women, and a lot of nonsense! It's a crush made up of gloved hands manipulating tortoiseshell or gold lorgnettes; but it's a crush all the same!

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec