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 19^th and early 20^th 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)

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 18^th 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 20^th 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."

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[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”.

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.

THE LORETTES OF MONTMARTRE

THE LORETTES OF MONTMARTRE

Montmartre by Hippolyte Bayard Molinos, c. 1842

By the late 1700s, Montmartre, located just outside the city limits of Paris and separated from the city by the Wall of the Fermiers-Généraux, was in effect a town unto itself, located on and around a high butte, the landscape dotted with small farms, vineyards, windmills, and ramshackled homes, a fact made official in 1790 when the National Constituent Assembly designated it as the Commune of Montmartre with its own town hall, Georges Clemenceau[1] as its mayor, and its own industries: wine making, stone quarries and gypsum mines. Under the Haussmanization[2] (urban renewal) of Paris at the behest of Emperor Napoleon III, the wall was torn down and January 1, 1860, it was annexed to the city along with other communities (faubourgs) surrounding Paris, and became part of the 18^th arrondissement of Paris.[3] There was Montmartre extra muros or High Montmartre, high up and on top of the butte, and then there was Montmartre intra muros or “Low Montmartre), as one might expect on the lower slope and at the bottom.

Now, the population at the time, in High Montmartre was what one might consider rather rustic and generally friendly, made up of millers, vine-growers, laborers and men who worked the quarries. Montmartre intra muros however was far different — a tempestuous conglomeration of taverns and cabarets and their proprietors, various and assorted ruffians, and the denizens of dance halls and guinguettes; that is; taverns with gardens where one could dance and drink to their heart’s content (a tradition that extended as far back as 1640). Guinguettes also served as restaurants. The origin of the term comes from guinguet, meaning a nasty sour white light local wine that was served in such establishments in the old days. The 1750 Dictionnaire de la langue français, defined guinguette as a “small cabaret in the suburbs and the surrounds of Paris, where craftsmen drink in the summer and on Sundays and on Festival days”; however, this definition would seem to have been concocted by the local chambre du commerce. Once the wall was down, the journey up the butte to High Montmartre became an easier trek for the Low Montmartrois. The rogues and harlots headed uphill and with that also began the migration of the lorettes.

Terrace of a Cafe on Montmartre (La Guinguette) by Van Gogh (1886)

Luncheon of a Boating Party, Dejeuner de Canotiers by Renoir (1880 - 1881) 

“Lorettes” sounds like it could have been a Motown singing group from the late 1950s or 1960s but really what “lorettes” meant, was “kept women;” “respectable mistresses,” who to some occupied a theoretical “middle ground” of prostitution between the grande dame of commercial sex, the courtesan, and the far more “gritty” street prostitute, who occupied Low Montmartre. Actually they came from the Notre-Dame-de-Lorette neighborhood (thus the name); originally a band of noisy, vulgar women whose antics often made the bourgeoisie blush, giving Montmartre what can only be regarded as a thoroughly scandalous reputation, beyond what it had already achieved. Later the lorettes would assume at least some of the trappings of refinement if not the culture itself.

They might have been described as neither wives nor spinsters, and according to them, neither were they prostitutes. Probably the daughters of tradesmen and Artisans in Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, they were most often not more than girls, or at least young women, who had struck out on their own to live among the artists and bohemians of Montmartre and they were not, it seems, totally unwelcome; for, the owners of newly constructed apartments or hotels often let the girls live there free until such time as the rooms could be rented. As things progressed, they were most often elegantly attired and “entertained” their men (frequently upper class bourgeoisie or lower-level aristocrats — business men, professionals or even wealthy students), often in well decorated apartments, or at least accompanied them out, —. In this way, they dwelled on the very edge between respectability and social stigma. In the course of events, they lived with their men, deserted them (or were themselves deserted) — then moved on to the next. And when the great adventure was over, they frequently went back to their families (thus the “migration”) or drifted downward to wretchedness and despair; often ending up in the hospital as victims of venereal diseases, or worse, floating in the Seine.

Van Gogh knew them, Lautrec knew them, Degas knew them, Balzac wrote about them in Grandeurs et miséres des courtisanes, and Gavarni,[4] Guys,[5] and others painted them.

Les  Lorettes, from a series (c. 1841)

Lorettes by Gavarni (no date available)

Two Lorettes at the Theater by Constantine Guys, (no date available)

Loge by Constantin Guys (no date available)

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[1] Georges Benjamin Clemenceau (September 28, 1841 – November 24, 1929) was a French statesman who led the nation in the First World War. A leader of the Radical Party, he played a central role in politics during the Third Republic. Clemenceau served as the Prime Minister of France from 1906 to 1909, and again from 1917 to 1920. In favor of a total victory over the German Empire, he militated for the restitution of Alsace-Lorraine to France. He was one of the principal architects of the Treaty of Versailles at the France Peace Conference of 1919. Nicknamed “Père la Victoire” (Father Victory) or “Le Tigre” (The Tiger), he took a harsh position against defeated Germany, though not quite as much as the President Raymond Poincaré, and won agreement on Germany's payment of large sums for reparations.

[2] Haussmann’s renovation of Paris was a vast public works program commissioned by Emperor Napoléon III and directed by his prefect of the Seine, Georges-Eugène Haussmann, between 1853 and 1870. It included the demolition of crowded and unhealthy medieval neighborhoods, the building of wide avenues, parks and squares, the annexation of the suburbs surrounding Paris, and the construction of new sewers, fountains and aqueducts. Haussmann's work met with fierce opposition, and he was finally dismissed by Napoleon III in 1870; but work on his projects continued until 1927. The street plan and distinctive appearance of the center of Paris today is largely the result of Haussmann's renovation.

[3] The city of Paris is divided into twenty arrondissements municipaux, administrative districts, more simply referred to as arrondissements. These are not to be confused with departmental arrondissements, which subdivide the 101 French départements. The word "arrondissement", when applied to Paris, refers almost always to the municipal arrondissements.

[4] Paul Gavarni was the nom de plume of Sulpice Guillaume Chevalier (January 13, 1804, Paris – November 24 1866), a French illustrator, born in Paris.

[5] Constantin Guys, Ernest-Adolphe-Hyacinthe-Constantin, (December 3, 1802 – December 13, 1892) was a Dutch-born Crimean War correspondent, water color painter and illustrator for British and French newspapers.

MONTMARTRE

MONTMARTRE

Way back when I was a small boy, a 5^th grader as I recall, my mother decided that it was time for me to be exposed to the arts rather than just the games that boys play; thus music lessons were in order as well as a change of bedroom décor – from model airplanes to famous paintings. In actuality, the model airplanes remained, only suspended in “flight” from the ceiling. There were two walls that she had to “play” with, the other two being occupied by a large picture window and a big, walk-in closet. One day she made a trip down to the Tro Harper bookstore on Powell Street (San Franciscans from my generation might remember that wonderful place) and returned with what she was certain were real treasures (albeit inexpensive). On one wall, she hung large, framed prints by Maurice Utrillo and on the other, framed prints by Vincent Van Gogh. Now these weren’t just the paper prints we commonly see today, but prints mounted on heavy, textured cardboard so as to give texture to the prints, as though they actually were paintings. And for years afterward, until I left at age eighteen, they hung there, and I looked at them, and wondered, and dreamed.

There was Utrillo’s 1938 Montmartre,

  

his 1937 Lapin Agile,

  

his 1934 Sacre-Coeur de Montmartre and Passage Cottin,

 

and lastly his 1914 Street in Paris.

 

To the right of those, on the next wall was my Van Gogh “collection”: Wheat Field and Cypresses (1889),

  

Starry Night (1889),

  

Café Terrace at Night (1888),

  

Irises (1889),

  

and just for good measure, upstairs, over the fireplace was Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers (1888).

  

Irises I wasn’t so excited about. What young boy really is; however, especially in summer, I used to look at Wheat Field and could easily imagine being right there — I could smell the wheat and the cypresses carried on a warm breeze. I used to imagine myself at one of the tables in Café Terrace at Night, on the Place du Forum in Arles, just watching the world go by. And Starry Night I could look at for hours — as though in a dream courtesy of Vincent. I found myself wanting to go to the Lapin Agile of Utrillo’s painting, and wanted to go inside, even though I had no idea what a lapin agile was or what the actual place was. I could imagine people walking past the wine and liquor store in his Montmartre, wondered what the church at the top of the butte in Sacre-Coeur de Montmartre was like inside, and wished I could go into the boulangerie in Street in Paris — I could almost smell the bread baking.

It was at about that same time that I became acquainted with Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec via John Houston’s 1952 production of Moulin Rouge with José Ferrer as Lautrec. What a marvelous movie; one in which Houston went to great lengths to match the appearance of actors and actresses with the characters of Lautrec’s Montmartre posters and paintings, not to mention the incredible detail paid to the interior shots of the cabarets and bars. His characters came alive and I was enthralled by their exoticism.

 

So one might say that in a sense I grew up in Montmartre, at least the Montmartre of the time of Van Gogh, Utrillo, Degas, and so many other artists, as well as the Montmartre of the Chat Noir, the Moulin Galette, and the Moulin Rouge. Montmartre was art, it was music, and was home to so many famous and some notorious folk that stirred the imagination. I went there once. Some visitors to France prefer the Louvre, or Versailles, or the Riviera, but not I. Montmartre was art and life at its grittiest, even then. I could almost hear the ghosts; for it was both wonderful and ghostly all at once. Truth be told, if I were to live in Paris, I would most certainly have to live in Montmartre — no other place would do.

There is a lot more to Montmartre than the average person realizes in terms of its history, art, music, and people. I made the district a sort of hobby and have studied it off and on through the decades, and I hope over the next few weeks to share some of what I have learned about this wonderful, ghostly, sinister and strange place.

CHILDREN’S CORNER by CLAUDE DEBUSSY

CHILDREN’S CORNER by CLAUDE DEBUSSY

Children’s Corner, a six movement suite for solo piano by Claude Debussy is my favorite composition for or about children next to Camille Saint-Saens’ Le Carnaval des animaux (Carnival of the Animals) which I will explore here at a later date. It was first published by Durand (Paris) in 1908 and premiered there, played by English pianist Harold Bauer, on December 18^th of that year. Three years later, an orchestration of Children’s Corner by Debussy’s friend Andre Caplet made its premier.

The work is dedicated to Debussy’s young daughter, Claude-Emma, affectionately known to her father as “Chou-chou” who was only three years of age when it was written. Contrary to popular belief, the suite was not intended to be played by children but rather it was intended to be reminiscent of the pleasures of childhood as well as (interestingly) some of “Chou-chou’s” toys. She was born on October 30 of 1905 and has been described by those who knew her as “lively,” “friendly,” and as a little girl who was adored by her father — something one might not be inclined to expect about the otherwise tempestuous composer. But alas, she died of diphtheria on July 14, 1919, just one year after the passing of her father.

As I mentioned, there are six movements (short pieces really) to the suite, all titled in English; something which Debussy did in acknowledgement of “Chou-chou’s” British governess (and thus no French title for the suite itself). The pieces are in order:

Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum

Jimbo’s Lullaby

Serenade for the Doll

The Snow is Dancing

The Little Shepherd

Golliwogg’s Cakewalk My favorite of the six.)

DOCTOR GRADUS AD PARNASSUM

The title of this piece suggests “Gradus ad Parnassum” (Steps to Parnassus” by Johann Joseph Fux (1660 – 1741), the first counterpoint text in any modern sense of the term and one of the greatest school texts in European music up until that time and Muzio Clementi’s “Gradus ad Parnassum” which is still used. Debussy’s piece is a study in finger independence; where, especially in the middle, the pianist slows down and tries various keys. It is somewhat difficult to play unless one’s fingers are quite skillful and gets wilder toward the end.

JIMBO’S LULLABY

Actually it should be “Jumbo” but French pronunciation sometimes confuses “um” with “un” and with “im” and “in.” Be that as it may, Jimbo was an elephant who lived briefly in the Jardin des Plantes in Paris around time Debussy was born. As a reminiscence of his childhood, it is a wonderful lullaby but with some dark moments.

SERENADE OF THE DOLL

Noted to be played moderately fast…but not too fast (Allegretto ma non troppo) and played with the soft peddle throughout, the piece describes an Asian porcelain doll, probably Chinese, and features the Chinese pentatonic scale.

THE SNOW IS DANCING

A difficult piece with the melody being carried by both left and right hands. Somewhat dark at times, particularly in the middle, it depicts falling snow and faint objects seen through it.

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD

Simple enough, this piece represents a shepherd with his flute — actually three solos and “commentaries” after them, with a lot of dissonance.

GOLLIWOGG’S CAKEWALK

At the time of its composition, Golliwogs were all the rage, due in part to the popularity of the novels of Florence Kate Upton. They were stuffed, black dolls with red paints, red bow ties, and wild hair. This is ostensibly a ragtime piece (also quite popular at the time) with syncopations, a large dynamic range, and various effects. Listen carefully for occasional interruptions by the love-death motif of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde followed by imitations of a banjo. A “cakewalk” itself was a dance or actually more of a strut often seen in dance competitions of the time in which the dancer with the most elaborate steps one a cake — hence the phrase “took the cake.”

Piano Version:

Orchestral Version: