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Friday, August 19, 2016

LAUTREC GRAFFITI

LAUTREC GRAFFITI


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.















(Photographs courtesy of Aoi Tokugawa)







Thursday, July 14, 2016

ABSINTHE MAKES THE HEART GROW FONDER: PART II, A VERY BRIEF HISTORY OF THE "GREEN MUSE"

ABSINTHE MAKES THE HEART GROW FONDER
PART II: A Very Brief History of "The Green Muse"

The Absinthe Drinker, by Viktor Oliva (1901).

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”.

Tuesday, July 5, 2016

IRIS: HOKUSAI AND VAN GOGH

IRIS: HOSKUSAI AND VAN GOGH

     

     " My studio is not bad, especially as I have pinned a lot of little Japanese prints on the wall, which amuse me very much."

Iris and Grasshopper, from an unnamed series by Katsushika Hokusai, c. 1833.

Iris, Vincent van Gogh, Saint-Rem7-de-Provence, 1889.


Monday, June 27, 2016

APACHES!

APACHES!


Title page of Le Petit Journal (20 October 1907):
The Apache is the sore of Paris.
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.

Thursday, June 16, 2016

ABSINTHE MAKES THE HEART GROW FONDER: PART I

ABSINTHE MAKES THE HEART GROW FONDER: PART I


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.