Absinthe Blog

Absinthe was known to have fascinated many illustrious artists of the nineteenth and twentieth century. Their interest in absinthe lay either as an alcoholic drink that they relished or as a subject to be depicted in some their memorable art work. Some of the renowned artists that favored absinthe as their drink included poet Verlaine, the Bohemian poet who belonged to Paris, Charles Cros, the poet who regularly frequented absinthe cafes of Paris, Ernest Hemingway, the distinguished writer besides celebrated painters like Manet, Degas, Pablo Piccaso and Vincent van Gogh.

Perhaps no other artist has been more closely linked to absinthe than the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh, better known as van Gogh. Gogh had a very short life, spanning only thirty seven years from 1853 to 1890. History has it that van Gogh had a difficult life, plagued with many diseases. However, despite his physical debility, van Gogh worked very hard on his paintings and tried hard to become famous and seek his place under the sun. It was an irony that while all his short life’s hard work did not bring him any fame, many years after his death, 113 years to be precise, his style of painting and scheme of colors used in the paintings, won him global acclaim.

Many reports suggest that Gogh was a fervent absinthe drinker and the thujone content in absinthe was thought to have aggravated his physical ailments, as Gogh suffered from epilepsy, reportedly caused due to the aggravation of a lesion that Gogh had in his brain at the time of his birth. His temporal lobe epilepsy was the reason behind the frequent seizures that Gogh suffered during his entire life. One of Gogh’s physicians, Dr. Gachet, prescribed the drug digitalis to Gogh as a cure for his epileptic seizures and medical studies on digitalis suggest that it caused one to see yellow circles or “haloes” around many things. This side effect of the digitalis drug is related to the depiction of yellow spots in many of Gogh’s paintings by some art historians. Though there is no evidence to prove that digitalis was administered to Gogh by his physician, it is said that Gogh, in a couple of his paintings, drew his physician holding the plant Digitalis purpure, believed to be the natural source of digitalis.

Gogh’s affinity to absinthe was an attempt to reduce his physical suffering, caused due to the epileptic attacks and bouts of depression that he suffered very frequently. Going by the medical speculations on Gogh’s physical and mental health, it appears that though drinking absinthe must have given Gogh temporary relief from his pain and suffering, the thujone in absinthe only deteriorated his physical and mental well being. Continued use of thujone is said to make people see things in the yellow hue, a medical condition referred to as xanthopsia, another pointer towards the fact that it was possibly for this reason that Gogh favored yellow colour in most of his works.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 5th, 2007 at 12:29 pm and is filed under Absinthe and Artists. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.