"Absyntomania" w Belle Époque

The article is a synthetic presentation of the history of absinthe in France, a reflection upon socio-cultural connotations of the beverage which became the symbol of bohemians and decadents on the turn of the twentieth century, almost taking on the form of “absinthomania”. And although in the Scènes de la vie de Bohème by Henri Murger, a chronicle of the Parisian bohemians of the mid-century, the green liquor (called la fée verte – the green fairy) did not play part of the alcohol beverage determining the status of artists, in the period of the Third Republic it became a sought-after means to enhance personality and creative powers in snobbish circles of poets and painters, praising its magical properties. The text presents an analysis of its numerous representations, overused by, among others, Oscar Wilde, Ernest Dowson, Charles Cros, Max Jacob, André Salmon, Arthur Rimbaud, Paul Verlaine, but also by Vincent van Gogh, Maurice Utrillo, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec. Painted representations of absinthe, just like poetical evocations of the alcoholic intoxication, reveal various faces of the myth of the fin-de-siècle: “the green muse” leading to the areas of metaphysics, transgression, freedom of art and life, and “the green demon” pushing one to crime, loneliness and death.