Toulouse Lautrec has used an interesting arrangement of warm and cool to balance this painting. The dominating cool, dark mass of the women’s dresses and background waiter, are flanked by a pair of horizontal red stripes.

 

The stripes are balanced, on the opposite side of the painting, by the shape of a red jacket. A small flick of red in the collar of one of the women creates a balanced triangular arrangement of reds in a field of predominantly cool blue/greys.

 

The areas of light punctuating the dark masses establish the focal point, but it is the arrangement of reds that keep the painting balanced.

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