Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

[queenriley]

Just found something out. After watching Moulin Rogue and then finding the original on telly (the one focusing on Toulouse), and knowing Toulouse was a famous painter, I decided to do a bit of research on what many have called this "freakishly short yet exceptionally talented" man. He was the son of an aristocrat. At 12 he broke his left leg, and at 14 he broke his right. The bones did not heal properly and he was left with legs that did not grow, so while his body reached normal size, his legs did not, causing him to be excessively short. He was ridiculed by all around him for being so much smaller. He lived in Montmarte in Paris and turned to alcohol to escape the ridicule. His most famous paintings are those done of the Moulin Rogue and it's inhabitants. Even the freaks and socially unaccepted did not accept Toulouse into their folds because of his abnormal height. He died on September 9, 1901 after being taken care of by his loving and devoted mother (it was the alcohol addiction that eventually killed him). He was the last in the line of the Toulouse family, and the name died with him.

Everything says he was 1.5 meters tall. I did the conversions. The man was 4 feet 11 inches tall. 4'11"! The man was TALLER than I am (admitadly only by 1/2 an inch, but still) and they called him freakishly short?!?! That kind of makes me feel bad now... I mean, I know I'm short, but I didn't think I was THAT short... not so that someone taller than me would be called freakish for being so short.

Comments

[wench2002.livejournal.com]

I hate it when society judges you upon your size, it makes you wonder what kind of a place the world was then.

*huggles fellow little person* Love you to pieces though. :)

[soupytwist.livejournal.com]

Yeah, ditto to the above. I have cousins who are shorter than you (my mum's family is all little) and I'm not much taller than you myself. That doesn't make us *anything* other than ourselves. So, FUX off, stupid people who think otherwise.

*hugs*

[perceval.livejournal.com]

I guess it's worse for guys, because men are taller than women.

Being quite short makes you special, I think - just as being very tall.

I know a short woman
who's afraid of having a baby because she's so tiny.
You obviously weren't scared of this and were able to trust your body to do what it was built to do.

perceval

Re:

[queenriley.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I trusted my body to do what it was built to do, and it did just fine through the pregnancy. :) It was the labor that it screwed up, and the healing from the c-section, and then the healing from the c-section infection and aneurysm. But that was more my body and it's apparent need to punish me, and not because I'm small. Your friend should have no problems... even dwarves carry and easily deliver healthy average sized babies. :)