All About - History - Hitler Versus Stain

Drinking With The Devil
L'Absinthe by Edgar Degas was called ugly and disgusting
when first shown as many saw it as a blow to morality
“across the world, celebrity thinkers
reached for a bottle, hoping to find
their muse somewhere in the green tipple”
and royalty, but here was a painting of a drunken
tramp. Similarly, Edgar Degas’s L’Absinthe depicts
the expressionless addicts, sitting isolated and
zombie-like in a café, and Paul Gauguin’s love of
the mind-altering drink inspired his unmistakable
post-impressionist works, its influence seen not in
subject, but in the style that is uniquely Gauguin.
The most notorious episodes of absinthe
consumption in the art world don’t involve paint
and canvas, however. Toulouse-Lautrec was so
devoted to the drink that he carried a hollowed
cane filled with it, so that he would never be far
from a taste. His works make frequent reference
to absinthe, and in Baz Luhrmann’s 2001 movie
Moulin Rouge, it’s Toulouse-Lautrec who introduces
the innocent hero to the Green Fairy on a riotous
night on the town.
Vincent van Gogh, a man with a reputation
for extremes, drank huge quantities of absinthe.
Indeed, some believe that van Gogh was under its
influence when, in a legendary episode of mania,
he cut off his ear and then sent it to a brothel maid.
Perhaps it shouldn’t come as a surprise to learn that
van Gogh’s companion during this incident was
Paul Gauguin.
In the realms of literature, absinthe was no
less influential. Charles Baudelaire and Guy de
Maupassant drank it often and referenced it in their
work. Playwright and author, Alfred Jarry, was so
devoted to the Green Fairy that he painted his face
green, took to his bicycle and pedalled through
Paris singing its praises. Even Ernest Hemingway
was among its many fans. In 1931, while intoxicated,
he performed gun and knife tricks in his Florida
home and reported them with glee to his friends.
For poet Paul Verlaine, the absinthe experience
was considerably less good-humoured. A slave to
a parasitic aphid, the phylloxera, ravaged the
vineyards of Europe, eventually reaching the fertile
flora of France. With the vines stripped bare and
the aphid showing no sign of lessening its grip, the
drinkers of France were in need of something to fill
their empty glasses.
With so many returning soldiers singing its
praises, absinthe became the obvious choice, and
it didn't take long until everyone in France was
indulging in a glass. Although absinthe will always
be associated with the bohemian set, especially
those who caroused at the Moulin Rouge and
whose poetry, artworks and escapades have
become famed, the drink wasn’t solely the preserve
of the artistic classes.
Despite its reputation as ‘the poet’s poison’, you
were as likely to find a factory worker sipping
absinthe in the suburbs as you were to glimpse
Picasso indulging on the left bank and, crucially,
the bourgeoisie loved it. Their lives were safe,
secure and respectable, and in something so simple
as the ritual pouring of a glass of absinthe, they
tasted bohemian decadence. Tomorrow they would
be respectable all over again, but the evening was
for intoxicated debauchery.
When absinthe ensnared the bourgeoisie, its
dominance was secured. Production increasing
to meet the massive demand and rapidly falling
prices put absinthe in everyone’s reach. Although
its popularity in most other countries didn’t quite
reach French levels of enjoyment, it was quaffed
across the continent and beyond, reaching as far as
the Czech lands of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Perhaps the only place where the popularity
of absinthe rivalled its French standing was in
Prague. Here absinthe was a favourite of the artistic
community, while across the Atlantic in New
Orleans a bar named The Absinthe Room opened
in 1874 and attracted some very illustrious clients.
Standing alone in the annals of absinthe lore is
Spain, the only mainland continental country
never to have banned the drink. Perhaps it’s no
coincidence that the original proprietor of that New
Orleans bar was a Spanish national.
Across the world, celebrity thinkers reached for a
bottle, hoping to find their muse somewhere in the
green tipple. It inspired many paintings, including
Édouard Manet’s The Absinthe Drinker, which got
his career off to a controversial start. Traditionally,
full-length portraits were reserved for aristocracy
"Absente" poster for absinthe in a back street of Nice.
Vincent van Gogh helped to popularise the drink
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