L'Esprit Créateur

THE CARICATURE ON THE COVER of this issue of L'Esprit Créateur figures in a letter that painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec wrote to his uncle, Charles, in 1881, when he was about seventeen. By this time, salon painter René Princeteau had been training Toulouse-Lautrec for a decade and had helped him gain entrance to Léon Bonnat's studio, which he would join the following year. Contributor Alexandra Courtois de Viçose notes that, at this point, Toulouse-Lautrec still aspired to be a salon painter and figures himself here learning through the relentless copying of ideal proportions, forms, and poses. In the sketch, Princeteau works on one of his chasse à courre (hunting) paintings, while in front of him Toulouse-Lautrec sketches the statue looming over him, its angle and positioning arguably signaling Toulouse-Lautrec's internalized sense that he couldn't live up to these standards, either in terms of his artistic skill or his own physique.

The artists' stances are virtually identical and their attire strikingly similar, while salient features of each are exaggerated: Princeteau is comically tall and angled while Toulouse-Lautrec is comically short and stout. Both are stylish, even jaunty, and absorbed in their work. As figured here, neither reflects the ideals and harmony inherent in the statue. Although less obvious, both are disabled. Princeteau, deaf since birth, communicated primarily through sign language. As a result of genetic disease, Toulouse-Lautrec experienced leg fractures that resulted in stunted growth, chronic pain, and a marked limp, prompting him to use a cane. Courtois de Viçose characterizes their relationship and the mutual influence that Toulouse-Lautrec captures here in their mirrored stance. "Such osmosis occurred between teacher and apprentice that, to this day, curators at the Princeteau museum occasionally hesitate in their attributions."¹

The sketch thus tacitly and explicitly inserts disability between us, the viewers, and the statue. Poking fun at these ideals, the sketch includes a dog's wagging tail in the bottom right corner of Princeteau's canvas; the statue itself better resembles a diver poised to jump in the water than any sort of classical ideal. Paying homage to his beloved teacher, Toulouse-Lautrec represents him here exactly as Princeteau most often represented himself. Joy and delight dapple the landscape of their shared workspace, highlighting the sympathies that existed between the two artists and challenging directly the other charge [End Page 1] that has hobbled Toulouse-Lautrec's critical legacy, that of a solitary and "disgraceful creature" who supposedly expressed his self-hatred through art that is ostensibly poorly executed and features downtrodden and degraded subjects.²

Instead, here, their artistic collaboration serves as an invitation to reimagine disability as a creative, collaborative, and dynamic transformation of artistic and embodied ideals. Such ideals are disrupted and evolve thanks especially to the many ways disabilities and their interaction shaped how these two artists lived in and imagined the world—and produced art.³ This themed issue of L'Esprit Créateur, "Disability's Worldmaking: Pasts and Futures," explores the interdisciplinary field of French disability studies in a collaborative effort to reimagine a world, not just with disability in it (because of course disability is in it!) but wherein the temporalities, inventiveness, and relationships that it both requires and desires give rise to new forms and connections, expanding and multiplying meanings and relational possibilities for everyone. This issue thus takes its impetus from Joë Bousquet's insistent reminder, "le monde est à créer."⁴ Begun in April 2020 with Jennifer Row, this issue is one element of "Dreaming Up the Change Disability Makes," a collaborative project funded by the Arts, Design and Humanities Imagine Chairship to build programming in Critical Disability Studies at the University of Minnesota. This grant also afforded the opportunity to develop and teach together an intercampus course in French Disability Studies (in French) in the fall of 2020. To develop and co-teach this course with Jennie, particularly in this time of pursuits more solitary than ever, was nothing short of magical—a time of discovery, sustained interdependence, and joy.

The grant and...