Absinthe Essay

Absinthe has been a topic of great consternation in both social and artistic realms for generations. The green liqueur dates back to Greek and Roman times and is even mentioned in the Bible, but it has still managed to earn a negative reputation over the past one hundred years. Nineteenth century society as a whole enjoyed and drank absinthe. It, and the controversy surrounding it, inspired many painters of the time such as Degas, Manet, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Raffaelli, to create works featuring the drink. Even though it was a controversial substance, absinthe provided these artists with the inspiration and motivation needed to create some, if not a majority of, their works.

Absinthe has many mind-altering side effects that were highly sought after as well as some that were not so desirable. Some of these side effects include euphoria, mania, seizures, violence, hallucinations, blindness, and ‘enlightenment’. The euphoria, hallucinations, and ‘enlightenment’ led to this drink being “the poor’s way of escaping reality” and in Manet’s Absinthe Drinker, the absinthe glass in the piece was to be recognized as the outlet of escape and delusion for the poor.

Citizens of the time consumed rampant amounts of absinthe because of the extremely high prices of wine. Because of the high prices, absinthe became a more affordable alternative; therefore the poor could still achieve intoxication and escape reality. Society in the 1800’s started to blame Absinthe for cultural fears about sexuality, madness, and aggression. As a result of the overwhelming popularity of the drink, the wine growers of the time period started losing money, so they in turn backed the Temperance Movement, which targeted Absinthe and blamed it f...

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...e with Absinthe, which features a glass of the greenish-yellow liquid next to a bottle of water, which was used to dilute the drink. Van Gogh was a heavy drinker of the volatile liquid and had many outbursts of hysteria, hallucinations, and seizures. As such, absinthe’s cultural legacy is most closely associated with him above all other painters who had partaken of the drink. Van Gogh’s antics were well-known, like for instance, when he cut his ear off during one of his absinthe binges.

Van Gogh even knew that his indulgence in absinthe assisted his artistic creativity. In letters to his brother Theo he wrote that “if I recover, I must begin again and I shall not again reach the heights to which sickness partially led me.” Some scholars have hypothesized that Van Gogh’s abundant use of absinthe caused a condition called Xanthopsia, which causes yellow vision.