One of my passions over the last few
years has been my cartooning and documenting the graffiti (I prefer to refer to
it as free street or alley art) in my city. That having been said, it was only
recently that I discovered that one of my favorite artists from the late 19th
and early 20th centuries — Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec — was also a
graffiti artist and cartoonist. Now, I have seen graffiti on buildings, in
alleyways, in Montmartre that people will insist were done by Lautrec…but I
think not. He did from time to time scrawl drawings or caricatures on the walls
of various bistros and such (as did Utrillo), but no alley art has ever been
documented. What there are however, are drawings done by a very young
Toulouse-Lautrec on the walls of the orangery (a greenhouse where orange trees
are grown) at the Château du Bosc dans l’ Aveyron, one of the family estates
were the artist spent many vacations from early childhood right up until the
time of his passing, portraying his early impressions of horses (a passion of
his) and various relatives or people he knew as a child.
I have not been able to accurately date
the following pencil sketches although I believe they, with the exception of
one, predate his first tragic fall, breaking his left leg, on May 30, 1878.
Already by the age of thirteen, Henri had shown a strong interest and a
developing talent for drawing. My belief that these drawings predate 1878 is
based on the fact that some of the sketches are located very high up on the
walls, done no doubt with the assistance of a ladder — a height inaccessible to
Lautrec for many years thereafter. Thus, they are perhaps among the earliest
preserved Lautrec drawings.
The one drawing that I think is from a
different time, done by an older Henri, is the last drawing in the series, of
circus performers, no doubt done from memory, from a circus he may have visited
with his mother some time later. Notice that the style is much more refined
than the other graffiti in both style and detail.
The
origins of “La Muse Virte” (“The Green Muse”) is somewhat unclear but it is
known that she has been around for a very long time, and that wormwood (Artemisia absinthium) was used medicinally
in ancient Egypt and was mentioned in the Ebers Papyrus dated c. 1550 BC. We
also know that various wormwood extracts and leaves soaked in wine were also
used as medicine by the ancient Greeks; however, the Greeks, ever the
innovators, took things a step further and concocted a wormwood-flavored wine, absinthites oinos, perhaps a precursor
of the Greek aperitif ouzo.
Dr. Ordinaire, c. 1792.
That
having been said, the first evidence that we have of a “modern” absinthe, that
is a distilled spirit containing green anise and fennel, only dates back to the
18th century where according to legend, “La Muse” made her debut as
an “all purpose” patent medicine created by one Dr. Pierre Ordinaire[1],
residing in Couvet, Switzerland somewhere around 1792. Ordinaire’s formula was
passed on to the Henriod sisters,[2]
also of Couvet, who then sold absinthe as a “medicinal elixir” (there are some
however, who say that the Henriods were actually purveying their “elixir” long
before Ordinaire ever arrived from France. Be that as it may, the next
significant producer of absinthe was a Major Dubied who acquired the formula
from the Sisters Henriod (we don’t know if he bought it or stole it), and who
along with his son Marcellin and son-in-law Henry-Louis Pernod,[3]
opened the first absinthe distillery, Dubied Pére et Fils, in 1797, again in
Couvet, thus making the town the absinthe capital of the world at the time. In
1805, they built a second distillery in Pontarlier, France under the company
name Maison Pernod Fils, which remained the most popular brand of “La Muse”
until 1914.
Henry-Louis Pernod
Absinthe
rose in popularity, particularly in France, during the 1840s, when it was given
to (happy) French troops as a preventative medicine for malaria. Needless to
say, when the troops returned home, they brought with them their fondness for
the drink, which was spread to bars, bistros, cafés, and cabarets, so that by
the 1860s, 5 p.m. was known as “l’heure
verte” (“the green hour”), and the concoction became a cross-class
favorite, pleasing the wealthy bourgeoisie, poor artists and writers, and the
working-class. It has been said that absinthe was so popular that for many,
their day started with a glass of absinthe and ended or perhaps restarted with
the “l’heure verte” It may well have
been that a blight on French vineyards in the 1870s was at least partly
responsible for the spread of absinthe. At that time, wine was often drunk with
water, because water in many places, such as Paris, had a high bacterial
content and wine was believed to help alleviate the danger. When the phylloxera
blight caused a spike in the prices of wine, the working classes (especially) turned
to the cheaper absinthe to “purify” their water. Be that as it may, popularity
by the 1880s resulted in mass production which in turn caused a dramatic price
drop. Reports are that by 1910, the French alone were drinking 36 million
liters of absinthe per year, as opposed to only 5 billion liters of wine per
year!
Absinthe
was widely exported and was somewhat popular in Spain, Portugal, Great Britain,
the United States, and the Czech Republic. Sales of absinthe hit a spike in
popularity during the early 20th century at a time when Art Nouveau
and modernism were popular movements. In America, New Orleans had its own
association with absinthe, noted as the birthplace of the “Sazerac” – perhaps
the earliest absinthe cocktail. The Old Absinthe House bar, located on Bourbon
Street, is a prominent historical landmark within the city. Originally named
The Absinthe Room, it opened in 1874 and was frequented by such people as Mark
Twain, Oscar Wilde, Franklin Roosevelt and even Frank Sinatra.
But
alas, the temperance movement would eventually take hold in the U.S. and elsewhere,
assisted by various winemakers’ associations, and “The Green Muse” found
herself accused of all sorts of violent crimes and social disorder.
As
one critic of absinthe complained, “Absinthe makes you crazy and criminal,
provokes epilepsy and tuberculosis, and has killed thousands of French people.
It makes a ferocious beast of a man, a martyr of women, and a degenerate of the
infant. It disorganizes and ruins the family and menaces the future of the
country.
Manet’s
Le Buveur d’absinthe (1859) and Degas’ 1876 painting, L’Absinthe were at the time held up as the epitomic image of
absinthe drinkers as addicted or doped. Émile Zola mentioned absinthe once but
extensively described its effects in his novel L’Assommoir.
Le Buveur d’absinthe by Manet (1859).
In
1905, it was widely reported that Jean Lanfray, a Swiss farmer, murdered his
family and attempted suicide after drinking absinthe. The fact of the matter
was that Lanfray was an acute alcoholic who had consumed copious amounts of
wine and brandy before drinking two glasses of absinthe (a small fact
conveniently overlooked in the press). The homicides were used as a rallying
point for the hot topic of absinthe and resulted in a petition to ban absinthe
in its own homeland of Switzerland. On July 5, 1908 the ban was approved and
subsequently written into the Swiss constitution. Two years prior to that,
Belgium and Brazil had banned absinthe, the Netherlands banned it in 1909, and
the United States in 1912. Interestingly it was never banned in the United
Kingdom
The
ban in France led to the popularity of pastis,
an anise-flavored aperitif and to a lesser degree, Greek ouzo. Following World War I, production of the Pernod Fils brand of
absinthe was renewed in Catalonia, Spain where it had never been banned;
however, sales were slight and production ceased in the 1960s, while in
Switzerland, absinthe went “underground,” produced in secret home distilleries
in a colorless form, la Bleue, which
was easier to conceal from the law.
Next time: The manufacture and "mixology" of "The Green Muse."
[1]Dr. Pierre Ordinaire, a French doctor living
in Switzerland had no sinister intent; rather, his intention was to deliver to
people the extract wormwood, which had long been known to have powerful healing
effects -- in a handy form.
[2]The Sisters Henriod had for a very long while been
creating medicinal tinctures and tisanes to help the residents of Couvet,
Switzerland. Many of their recipes had been passed down to them from their
mother and her mother before. Although
the Sisters were well respected and their shop well patronized, they still
needed to be cautious of the ever possible accusation of witchcraft even then;
for even though the final Witchcraft Act of 1735 written into law led to
prosecution for fraud rather than pacts with the Devil, both could result in in
a death sentence. (This same act was still used in Switzerland during the 1940s
to prosecute spiritualists and Gypsies and it wasn’t repealed until 1951.)
Now, according to the sisters' descendants, the two
ladies were very clever but also knew their limitations by virtue of simply
being women in the 1790s; therefore, they secured the help of their friend, DR.
Pierre Ordinaire, who they claim had quite a fancy for their mother, to promote
their wormwood product - Absinthe -and he was quite successful at it. One might
say he was a natural salesman, who attracted the attention of French
businessman, Major Dubied, who ultimately purchased the recipe from the sisters
at a very tidy sum.
[3]The story of Pernod began in 1805. Born in Switzerland in
1776, Henri-Louis Pernod founded his distillery in the town of Pontarlier,
located in the region of Doubs in eastern France, “La Maison Pernod Fils”. The
company produced and marketed Absinthe Pernod Fils, a drink inspired by an
elixir whose recipe Henri-Louis Pernod had acquired from its creator, Dr.
Ordinaire (or possibly the Sisters Henriod).In 1926, “La Maison Pernod Fils”
merged with “Distillerie Hémard”, founded in Montreuil in 1871 by Ariste Hémard,
and “Pernod Père et Fils”, founded in Avignon in 1872 by Jules-François Pernod.
These three companies came together to create “Établissements Pernod”. This organization
was directed by Jean Hémard, the grandson of Ariste Hémard.
In 1959, “Établissements Pernod” became “Pernod SA”.
More than 30,000 prowlers against 8,000 city policemen."
No,
I’m not referring to the Native American tribe; well not exactly, as I shall
explain in just a moment. Les Apaches (pronounced a.paj) was what can properly
be termed as a Parisian subculture; one which many people are romantically
inclined to associate with the late 1800s, the Parisian Belle Époque, but more
accurately should be associated more with the early 20th century. Be
that as it may, they were thugs, robbers, muggers, pimps, and members of street
gangs. Certainly anything but romantic. Indeed, as time went on and their ill
repute spread throughout Europe, the term “apache” came to describe any violet
street criminal.
How
the name came about is somewhat not entirely clear, but it would seem there is
a common thread in all the theories; that being, the comparison of the Parisian
thugs’ viciousness with descriptions that Parisians had heard or read,
concerning the Native American Apache Nation. As evidence, a 1904 edition of
the French magazine, Intermediary for
Researchers and Curious, gave credit to a writer named Victor Morris for
the term based on a statement made in November 1900 by a police inspector
describing a particularly horrific crime scene attributed to the criminals: “C’est un veritable truc d’Apaches!” Then
there is the tale which was told in the Le
Petit Journal in 1910 that a certain gang leader whose street name was “Terreur” (Terror) had heard that the
actions of the gangs were compared to the Apaches and was so delighted by the
comparison that he named his band of thugs “Apaches of Belleville.”
A group of Parisian Apache.
The photograph was used to advertise Apache fashions
Les
Apaches lived by their own code of honor, such as it was: they slept late,
spoke in their own patois or slang called Jare,
and even had their own special weapon, a combination of a revolver, brass knuckles
and dagger. And for their period and circumstance, they dressed extremely well.
All the while a victim was being robbed, he was just as likely to be admiring
the criminal’s shoes or clothes. A true Apache would steal, cheat, or even kill
to get his hands on a pair of shoes that would enhance his image in the eyes of
his colleagues or ladies. Although I have never seen an example of it, I am
told that the height of Apache fashion was a pair of freshly shined, pointed
yellow boots with gold buttons! Tres
gauche! Be that as it may, each Parisian gang dressed in a slightly
different fashion, often wearing something such as a red scarf as both a sign
of belonging and as a means of identification in other territories — something
that was ultimately adopted almost a century later by such American street
gangs as the “Bloods” and the “Crips” in Los Angeles, New York, and San
Francisco. Certain sartorial elements however were common to all the gangs.
They all wore a specific style of trouser, tight at the knees and flared at the
bottom, known as a Bénard, and above
that, they usually wore vests or jackets along with stripped sailor shirts and
a hat of some type, usually a flat cap. And Les Apache, being Parisian, and
Paris being the fashion capital of the world, the gangs unwittingly started a
fashion trend that spread even as far as the west coast of the United States.
An advertisement for Apache fashions from
a company in Los Angeles.
The
biggest targets of the gangsters, those who feared them the most, were the
newly emerging Parisian middle class. And well they should have, as walking
home in the evening from work, or later from some café or dance hall made them
easy prey. Why, Les Apaches even had a documented set of established tricks to
be used in mugging and for combat. The most infamous of these was the coup du pére Francois (the coup of
Father Francois — only God knows why) in which a victim was stalked by several
thugs before being garroted from the rear, with one brute assigned the task of
searching through the victim’s pockets while others served as lookouts after the
murder. They did not like to leave witnesses.
Certain
aspects of Les Apaches found their way into French and then European “pop”
culture of the time, from the “traditional” Apache horizontally striped shirt
to a violent dance. Classes were even available so that one could learn the
Apache argot or patois — the fashionable (among some) “thieves slang.”
Thus
we come to Le Dance Apache (Apache for short) or depending on where you lived,
the “Bowery Waltz,” the Apache Turn,” the “Apache Dance,” and just the “Tough
Dance.” It was a very dramatic dance, typically performed by a couple that grew
straight out of the Parisian thug subculture, by all accounts depicting a
violent, shall we say “dialogue” between an Apache pimp and his prostitute,
which included slapping, punching, and the pimp lifting and throwing the woman
to the ground, or carrying her around while she strikes out at him and perhaps
faints into unconsciousness (real or feigned). The actual popularity of the
dance can be attributed to Maurice Mouvet[1]
and Max Dearly,[2]
both dancers, who in 1908 visited numerous bars which catered to Les Apaches,
formulating the dance from the behaviors they witnessed there, giving it the
name “Apache.” Max Dearly premiered the dance later that year in Paris and Mouvet
at the Casino Kursaal at Ostend, Belgium. Shortly thereafter, Maurice Mouvet
and his partner Leona performed the dance great acclaim at Maxim’s in Paris and
Dearly and his partner impressed even bigger crowds in La Revue du Moulin at the Moulin Rouge.
Max Dearly and his parttner.
Maurice Mouvet and his partner.
Eventually
the dance found its way into early cinema, most frequently danced to “Valse des
Rayons,” also known as “Valse Chaloupée” from Jacques Offenbach’s ballet Le Papillon[3]which has from then on been the music most associated with the dance.”
Les Vampires, 1915.
Alexis and Dorrano in Dance Apache, 1934.
According
to famed ballroom dancer Irene Castle (1893 – 1969),[4]
the Apache dance was a dance “in which the male dancer tries to demolish the
female dancer, as spectacularly as possible…and usually succeeds. Popular until
the 1960s, many people felt that the dance tolerated violence against women and
it was because of this that the dance “died” in that decade amid its emerging
women’s independence. Understandable but not true. In fact, the Apache dance
was created by a woman as a statement (perhaps skewed in comparison with the
modern mindset regarding women’s rights) of independence and empowerment.
Back
in the 19th century, the lives of Parisian women, just like their
sisters in the United States, England, and throughout much of the world, were highly
restricted. A married/committed woman was considered property, and the man who
“owned” her also owned whatever possessions she had. Beyond that, many
marriages were arranged, and women were told, that under no circumstances were they
to be anything other than passive and submissive; yet, a husband could go out
at night and socialize with friends and associates while the wife stayed
home…where she belonged. Women had to stay out of the public eye unless
accompanied by a man; something which even extended to walking across a
ballroom floor.
Now
in Paris, women were allowed a brief taste of freedom from these restrictions —
but only once a year at Carnival. For only a few days, ending with Mardi Gras,
a woman could speak in an unguarded manner and exchange insults, smoke, drink,
or even travel without being accompanied by a man. She could even dress like a
man! In the 1830s, things changed slightly (I’m not sure why) but the
“freedoms” I just mentioned were extended to public dancing ant the dance
gardens of Paris, much to the credit of the lorettes and “free women” who
ventured there.
And
then there was Mistinguette, (also spelled Mistinguett) a woman of actually
dared to leave her domestic existence to become a stage entertainer around 1900,
as a singer and dancer. One of her earliest partners was Maurice Chavalier, ten
years her junior. As noted earlier, Max Dearly and Maurice Mouvet are credited
with the invention of the dance, with Mistinguette performing with Max in 1908
at the Le Revue du Moulin. Be that as
it may, in her autobiography written many years later, she claims to have
invented the dance as early as 1903. Well, maybe and maybe not and I promise to
research the matter further and to report back on my findings.
[1]Maurice Mouvet (March 17, 1889 - May 18, 1927)
was one half of the most famous and successful dance teams around the early 1910s
and lead the way for many performers that would follow, including Florence
Walton and Leonora (Leona) Hughes. Mouvet was said to have started his career
on the Vaudeville Stage as a page, then later becoming a dance performer,
getting a small glint of fame performing early dances such as waltzes,
cakewalks and mazurkas. Later, his specialty dance and attraction was the
“Argentine Tango” and the infamous Apache Dance which (with Walton) would
become one of his most successful ballroom-exhibition acts of his time, which
they performed at many rooftop theaters, dansants,
nightclubs and ballrooms in the 1910s and 20s. Mouvet is noted for creating
many dances and dance steps such as the “Junk Man Rag” (a one-step,) and the
“Brazilian Maxixe” in 1913. Mouvet is said to be the innovator of the “American
Tango” as it is danced today. Mouvet and Leona introduced his version of the
Apache at the Cafe de Paris in France about 1907, which he learned from one of
the original “Gunmen of Paris” (Apaches) and even performed it before his
majesty King Edward VII by his invitation.
[2]Max Dearly (November 22, 1874 - June 2, 1943),
born Lucien Paul Marie-Joseph Rolland, was a French dancer, stage and film
actor, producer and director.
[3]Le papillon (The
Butterfly) is a “fantastic ballet” in two acts (four scenes) of 1860, with
choreography by Marie Taglioni and music by Jacques Offenbach to a libretto by
Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges. Le
papillon was first presented by the Paris Opera Ballet at the Salle Le
Peletier on November 26, 1860 after a performance of Lucie de Lammermoor. The
principal dancers were Emma Livry (Farfalla/the Butterfly), Louis Mérante
(Prince Djalma), Louise Marquet (Fairy Hamza), and Mme. Simon (Diamond Fairy).
The “Valse des rayons” from the second scene of
Act 1 was re-used by Offenbach in the third act ballet for Die Rheinnixen
(1864) and parts of the score were inserted in the French version of Whittington, Le Chat du diable (1893).
Marius Petipa created an expanded staging in
four acts for the Imperial Ballet with Ludwig Minkus adapting Offenbach's
score. It was first presented in January 1874 at the Imperial Bolshoi Kamenny
Theatre in Saint Petersburg with Ekaterina Vazem (Farfalla/the Butterfly), Lev
Ivanov (Prince Djalma), Pavel Gerdt (Patimate), Mathil'da Madaeva (Fairy
Hamza), and Lubov Radina (Diamond Fairy). Petipa added a variation to the Grand
pas des papillons to a waltz by Luigi Venzano especially for Ekaterina Vazem –
this variation became known as the Pas
Vazem, and was much celebrated among the balletomanes of Saint Petersburg.
Ronald Hynd prepared a production for Houston
Ballet with his own adapted scenario and the score re-orchestrated by John
Lanchbery, which premiered on 8 February 1979. It entered the repertoire of the
Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet in Leeds on 7 February 1980. Described as Hynd’s
tribute to Emma Livry, the plot was pared down and reset in Persia with many of
the transformations and comic situations retained. But, compared to the
original 1860 material, the score is largely altered by Lanchberry who
integrates his own composition inside the main musical corpus, while changing
the numbers order and deleting a lot of the original Offenbach's score.
The original ballet was revived in a
reconstruction by Pierre Lacotte at the Rome Opera in 1982.
[4]Vernon and Irene Castle were a husband-and-wife
team of ballroom dancers and dance teachers who appeared on Broadway and in
silent films early in the early 20th century. They are credited with reviving
the popularity of modern dancing. Castle was a stage name: Vernon (2 May 1887 –
15 February 1918) was born William Vernon Blyth in Norwich, Norfolk, England.
Irene (17 April 1893 – 25 January 1969) was born Irene Foote in New Rochelle,
New York.
The couple reached the peak of their popularity
in Irving Berlin's first Broadway show, Watch Your Step (1914), in which they
refined and popularized the Foxtrot. They also helped to promote ragtime, jazz
rhythms and African-American music for dance. Irene became a fashion icon
through her appearances on stage and in early movies, and both Castles were in
demand as teachers and writers on dance.
After serving with distinction as a pilot in the
British Royal Flying Corps during World War I, Vernon died in a plane crash on
a flight training base in Texas in 1918. Irene continued to perform solo in
Broadway, vaudeville and motion picture productions over the next decade. She
remarried three times, had children and became an animal-rights activist. In
1939, her life with Vernon was dramatized in The Story of Vernon and Irene
Castle.
Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, Charles
Baudelaire, Paul Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Amedeo
Modigliani, Pablo Picasso, Vincent van Gogh, Oscar Wilde, Marcel Proust,
Aleister Crowley, Erik Satie, Edgar Allan Poe, Lord Byron and Alfred Jarry all
drank It has been talked about, written about, sung about, written about, and
the subject of paintings and posters.
L'Absinthe, by Edgar Degas (1876)
Simply put,
absinthe is historically described as a distilled, highly
alcoholic (90–148 U.S. proof) spirit, anise-flavoured
derived from botanicals, including the flowers and leaves of Artemisia
absinthium ("grand wormwood"), together with green anise, sweet
fennel, and other medicinal and culinary herbs. It traditionally has a natural green colour but may also be
colourless. In
literature and common usage during the 19th and early 20th centuries, it was
referred to as "la fée verte"
("the green fairy"). Although it is sometimes mistakenly referred to
as a liqueur, absinthe is not traditionally bottled with added sugar; it is
therefore classified as a spirit, traditionally bottled at a high level of
alcohol by volume, normally diluted with water prior to being consumed by all
but the die-hards imbibers.
Green Muse by Albert Maignan (1895)
Absinthe originated in the canton of
Neuchâtel in Switzerland in the late 18th century. It rose to great
popularity as an alcoholic drink in late 19th- and early 20th-century
France, particularly among Parisian artists and writers. Owing in part to its
association with bohemian culture, the consumption of absinthe was opposed by
social conservatives and prohibitionists.
By Henri Privat-Livermont (1896)
Absinthe has often been portrayed as a
dangerously addictive psychoactive drug and hallucinogen by the righteous and
self-righteous. The chemical compound thujone, although present in the spirit
in only trace amounts, was blamed for its alleged harmful effects. By 1915,
absinthe had been banned in the United States and in much of Europe, including
France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland and Austria-Hungary. Although
absinthe was vilified, it has not been demonstrated to be any more dangerous
than ordinary spirits. Recent studies have shown that absinthe's psychoactive
properties (apart from that of the alcohol) have been exaggerated. A revival
of absinthe began in the 1990s, following the adoption of modern European Union
food and beverage laws that removed longstanding barriers to its production and
sale. By the early 21st century, nearly 200 brands of absinthe were being
produced in a dozen countries, most notably in France, Switzerland, Australia,
Spain, and the Czech Republic. Not so much in the United States, as I shall
explain…
In 2007, the
Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) effectively lifted the
long-standing absinthe ban, and has
approved many brands for sale in the US market. This was made possible partly
through the TTB's clarification of the Food and Drug Administration's thujone content regulations, which specify
that finished food and beverages that contain Artemisia species must be
thujone-free; thus, the TTB considers a product thujone-free if the thujone
content is less than 10 ppm. The import, distribution, and sale of absinthe is
permitted subject to the following restrictions:
The product must
be thujone-free as per TTB guidelines,
The word
"absinthe" can neither be the brand name nor stand alone on the
label, and
The packaging
cannot "project images of hallucinogenic, psychotropic, or mind-altering
effects."
Absinthe imported
in violation of these regulations is subject to seizure at the discretion of
U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
More,
including the early history and lore of absinthe next time.
