In the footsteps of a little giant
Waldemar Januszczak follows the wild genius of Toulouse-Lautrec on a whistle-stop tour of racy Paris
What is the best 15 minutes you can spend in Paris? If your heart is sound and you are feeling energetic, consider a vigorous 15-minute walking tour of Toulouse-Lautrec’s Paris. In a quarter of an hour, it scoots you all the way round the origins of the modern world.
Lautrec had unusually short legs, as you probably know, and walking was difficult for him. So, one thought was that he didn’t travel because he couldn’t. But I don’t think that was it. I think he stayed put in the 18th arrondissement because there was no reason for him to go anywhere else.
Everything he needed was here. Unclad girls. Excellent food. Hundreds of absinthe bars. And filling the air in Montmartre was that irresistible perfume of being absolutely in the happening place. All around him, the modern world was being invented. And he was right in the middle of it. [...]
