{"id":7469,"date":"2023-09-28T02:15:44","date_gmt":"2023-09-28T02:15:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thucdoan.com\/?p=7469"},"modified":"2023-09-28T05:43:57","modified_gmt":"2023-09-28T05:43:57","slug":"7469","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thucdoan.com\/?p=7469","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\t\t\t\t\"\"\n\tEdgar Degas (France, 1834-1917)
\nL’Absinthe (The Absinthe Drinker\u00a0or\u00a0Glass of Absinthe)
\noil on canvas
\n92 \u00d7 68 cm. (36.2 \u00d7 26.8 in.)
\nPainted in 1875-1876\n

Collection of Mus\u00e9e d’Orsay, Paris, France<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\"\"\n\t

Edgar Degas chose as his subject a very popular drink at the end of the 19th century: absinthe.<\/p>\n

This is how the painting is often referred to.<\/p>\n

Look at the green colour of the glass, characteristic of this beverage. This alcohol, made from artemisia, aniseed and mint, was so strong that it could cause epileptic seizures. Artemisia contains thujone, a neurotoxic molecule that causes convulsions, but above all absinthe is an alcohol at 70\u00b0 or even higher! It was writer Oscar Wilde (France, 1854-1900) who gave absinthe its nickname, the “green fairy”, because when you drank it, you could see genies appear! Its effects are so powerful that absinthe was banned in 1915… before coming back in a modified form in 2011.<\/p>\n

Here, Degas depicts the devastating effects of this alcohol. Observe the sad, closed face of the woman behind the glass. She seems totally unaware of the man to her right… and vice versa, as he turns his head away. A far cry from the festive alcohol that warms hearts and brings people together!<\/p>\n

In what appears to be a mirror behind them, it’s not the characters’ reflections we see but their shadows, perhaps foreshadowing what absinthe will do to them…<\/p>\n

The composition of the painting is off-center, with the figures in the background on the right, as if the canvas itself were capsizing under the effect of alcohol.<\/p>\n

Zola would later claim to have drawn inspiration from Degas’ painting for his novels. L’Assommoir comes to mind. In the caf\u00e9 that gives the book its name, the couple of Gervaise and Coupeau fall into a slow decline due to alcoholism.<\/p>\n

Did you notice that the tables had no legs? The trays seem to levitate! Had Degas himself abused the Green Fairy before painting his picture?<\/p>\n

The painting is said to depict the caf\u00e9 “La Nouvelle Ath\u00e8nes” in Place Pigalle, where artists of the time, particularly the Impressionists, liked to gather. Degas asked two of his artist friends to pose: the actress Ellen Andr\u00e9e and the painter and engraver Marcellin Desboutin. Degas later had to make it clear publicly that they were not alcoholics so as not to damage their reputations!<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\"\"\n\t

Caf\u00e9 de le Nouvelle Ath\u00e8nes, Paris (before 1900)<\/p>\n\t

Have you spotted the original location of the artist’s signature? It’s at the bottom left, on the newspaper on the table. We haven’t finished talking about him yet!<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Edgar Degas (France, 1834-1917) L’Absinthe (The Absinthe Drinker\u00a0or\u00a0Glass of Absinthe) oil on canvas 92 \u00d7 68 cm. (36.2 \u00d7 26.8 in.) Painted in 1875-1876 Collection of Mus\u00e9e d’Orsay, Paris, France Edgar Degas chose as his subject a very popular drink at the end of the 19th century: absinthe. This is how the painting is often …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7467,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,13,380],"tags":[221,211,654,216,186],"class_list":["post-7469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archive","category-fine-art","category-old-masters","tag-edgar-degas","tag-france","tag-labsinthe","tag-musee-dorsay","tag-paris"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thucdoan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thucdoan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thucdoan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thucdoan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thucdoan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7469"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thucdoan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7469\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7473,"href":"https:\/\/thucdoan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7469\/revisions\/7473"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thucdoan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thucdoan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thucdoan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thucdoan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}