The artwork titled “At the Cirque Fernando, Rider on a White Horse” was created by the artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec in the year 1888. Executed in pastel, this piece is an exemplary work of the Post-Impressionism movement and falls under the genre painting category. The artwork is currently housed at the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, California, United States.
In the artwork, we observe a vibrant and expressive scene depicting a performer at Cirque Fernando, a popular entertainment venue during that time period. The central figure is a rider, most likely a female acrobat or equestrienne, portrayed in mid-performance upon a white horse which dominates the foreground. The rider is dressed in a blue costume, contrasting sharply with the pale tones of the horse, and is shown in profile, her gaze directed outside the immediate scene, suggesting engagement with an audience beyond the view of the piece.
The background is loosely sketched, with gestural lines and smudges that suggest the hustle and bustle of the circus environment without detracting from the main subjects. The handling of pastel creates a sense of immediacy and captures the fleeting, dynamic moment of the circus act.
The use of bright, bold colors is typical of Toulouse-Lautrec’s style, as is the sense of movement and the flatness of the figures, which reflects the influence of Japanese prints and the simplification of form characteristic of Post-Impressionism. The artwork captures the lively atmosphere of the Parisian nightlife that Toulouse-Lautrec was known to frequent and document in his work.
