{"id":1423,"date":"2026-06-02T23:50:46","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T21:50:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/horscadre.paris\/absinthe-the-visual-representation-of-modern-solitude\/"},"modified":"2026-08-24T22:42:39","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T20:42:39","slug":"absinthe-the-visual-representation-of-modern-solitude","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/horscadre.paris\/en\/absinthe-the-visual-representation-of-modern-solitude\/","title":{"rendered":"Absinthe \u2014 The Visual Representation of Modern Solitude"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Paris, Caf\u00e9 de la Nouvelle Ath\u00e8nes, Place Pigalle, circa 1875.<\/strong> Edgar Degas jotted down a quick idea in one of his sketchbooks<\/strong>: \u201cH\u00e9l\u00e8ne and Desboutin in a caf\u00e9.\u201d<\/em> This hastily jotted<\/strong> phrase already encapsulates the entire project that would become one of the most controversial paintings<\/strong> of the 19th-century French art world\u2014andthe pictorial invention<\/strong> of what would later be called modern urban solitude<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n

The painting is then called In a Caf\u00e9<\/em><\/strong>. It depicts the actress Ellen Andr\u00e9e<\/strong>, age twenty, and the painter and engraver Marcellin Desboutin<\/strong>, age fifty-two, sitting side by side<\/strong> on the red bench<\/strong> of a Parisian caf\u00e9. In front of the woman is a glass filled with an opaline green liquid<\/strong>:absinthe<\/strong> mixed with water. The man takes a puff on his pipe, his gaze turned to the right, outside the frame. The woman looks down at her glass, her shoulders slumped<\/strong>, her face marked by fatigue<\/strong>. The two figures are physically close<\/strong> but mentally apart<\/strong> \u2014each locked in their own silence<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n

Presented at the 2nd Impressionist Exhibition in Paris<\/strong> in April 1876<\/strong>, the painting caused a mild scandal<\/strong>. But it was seventeen years later, in London in 1893,<\/strong> that it sparked a second, much more intense scandal<\/strong> \u2014the exhibition of the work at the Grafton Gallery<\/strong> under the new title *L’Absinthe*<\/em><\/strong> sparked a moral outcry<\/strong> in the Victorian English press, which turned the painting into a symbol<\/strong> of the ravages of urban alcoholism<\/strong> and, paradoxically<\/strong>, Degas\u2019smost famous work<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n

This article traces the origins of this pivotal work<\/strong> in modern Western painting\u2014the caf\u00e9 in Nouvelle Ath\u00e8nes<\/strong> as a real-life setting<\/strong> for the Impressionist bohemian scene, the two models<\/strong>, Andr\u00e9e and Desboutin, who posed for several other Impressionists<\/strong>;the invention of a pictorial subject<\/strong> that did not exist before Degas ( urban solitude<\/strong> as a theme in itself); the specific social context<\/strong> of absinthe\u2019s ravages<\/strong> in Paris from the 1870s to the 1890s, and the curatorial journey<\/strong> that took *L\u2019Absinthe*<\/em> from its controversial debut at the Salon to its current place<\/strong> among the Museum of Orsay\u2019s absolute masterpieces<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n

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The Caf\u00e9 de la Nouvelle Ath\u00e8nes \u2014 Impressionist Bohemia<\/h2>\n\n

The Caf\u00e9 de la Nouvelle Ath\u00e8nes<\/strong>, located at 9 Place Pigalle<\/strong> in Paris, was one of the most important venues<\/strong> in Parisian artistic life during the 1870s and 1880s. It succeeded the Caf\u00e9 Guerbois<\/strong> (on Avenue de Clichy) as a gathering place for<\/strong> Impressionist painters<\/strong> and the modern artistic bohemian scene<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n

You’ll regularly find:<\/p>\n\n