The price of your excesses

The price of your vile excesses, capsule originally uploaded by Coilhouse.

“The end of the Green Fairy”, via Musee Absinthe.
Curious Absinthe prohibition posters from early 20th century France.

Posted by Zoetica Ebb on October 13th, 2007
Filed under Art, Ye Olde

6 Responses to “The price of your excesses”

  1. nadyalev Says:
    October 14th, 2007 at 3:38 pm

    OK, in the burning-at-the-stake picture, what is up with the second green fairy, flying through the sky? And why does she have that cross on her forehead? “Hold on sister, I’m coming to save you!”

  2. eluneth Says:
    October 14th, 2007 at 8:55 pm

    I love that one. Giant green women!
    The caption reads, “The French Green Fairy will rejoin her Swiss [hence the cross] sister, who has been waiting for her since July 5, 1908.”

  3. Absintheur Says:
    October 16th, 2007 at 10:09 am

    Hello

    I have never seen the third one, thanks. There is another of that era which shows a mortician covered in blood & drinking formaldehyde from a jar containing a dead foetus. Truly shocking and disgusting. I think that one is not anti absinthe per se, but part of the unhyoly alliance between French wine growers and anti – alcohol campaigners.

    Absinthe has / had a reputation as an aphrodisiac. It was believed that it was causing French men to become infertile. Oh, and it also sent you mad. Hence the name of my little blog: L’Absinthe Rend Fou. Both ideas total nonsense of course.

    Absintheur
    c/o Shady Pines Asylum :)

  4. Mateo Says:
    October 18th, 2007 at 6:20 pm

    Whats with the dog pissing on the man’s bag…very nonsensical

  5. zoetica Says:
    October 18th, 2007 at 9:25 pm

    It makes perfect sense – everything in his life is in a state of disarray because of his absinthe abuse. The price of his excesses, even.

  6. Absintheur Says:
    October 22nd, 2007 at 8:36 am

    “Whats with the dog pissing on the man’s bag”

    I think zoetica is correct

    Reminds me of the dog in some of Hogarth’s prints. I suspect it is a metaphor for degeneracy. Dr Magnan claimed that absinthe drinking poisoned the French blood and “absinthism” was passed on to children.

    Absinthe drinking was wrongly presented as sapping the life force of virile French men and as the cause of cowardice in the First World War.

    Thujone is blamed for the halluciogenic properties of the drink. That is the terpene in grande wormwood (artemisia absinthium) Today thujone is limited to 35mg/l in the European Union and it is not allowed in the USA.