At the “Moulin Rouge’

This painting made the artist famous as the painter-chronicler of the entertainments of Montmartre. Lautrec employed the wood barrier as a metaphorical divide between the frenzied action of the dance hall, seen as a blur in the background, and the stillness of the bored and waiting women (accompanied by a proprietary male) in the foreground. He used turpentine to thin his paint and applied it in loose washes, a technique known as “peinture à l’essence”.