Eugène Grasset – La Morphinomane (The Morphine Addict)

“Well it just goes to show
Things are not what they seem
Please, Sister Morphine, turn my nightmares into dreams
Oh, can’t you see I’m fading fast?
And that this shot will be my last…”

(The Rolling Stones, Sister Morphine)

Eugène Grasset, La Morphinomane (The Morphine Addict), 1897, color lithograph

In one of my previous posts I wrote about Eugene Grasset’s lovely watercolour “Young Girl in the Garden”, but today I am presenting a very different work of the same artist. The heroine of the artwork is again a woman, but not a dreamy, romantic young woman standing in her garden, surrounded by flowers and birds in the sunset of the day, oh no, the heroine of this colour litograph is a morphine addict. The figure of the addict woman is portrayed from the head to the knees and this closely cropped composition makes the mood more intimate, more immediate. The fact that she is dressed in her undergarments contributes to the intimate, secretive mood. After all, injecting morphine is a private thing to do so the bedroom setting and the clothes she is wearing are both more than appropriate. We hold our breath as we watch the woman inject the morphine into her thigh. The transient pain of the needle will soon melt into sweet nothingness that the Sister Morphine offers…

“Because when the smack begins to flow
I really don’t care anymore
About all the Jim-Jim’s in this town
And all the politicians makin’ crazy sounds
And everybody puttin’ everybody else down….
Then thank God that I’m good as dead
Then thank your God that I’m not aware
And thank God that I just don’t care
And I guess I just don’t know
And I guess I just don’t know.“

(Velvet Underground, Heroin)

All details are eliminated; we can partly see the green chair behind the woman and the table on the left is cut off from the space of the artwork because neither are necessarry. Even the colour scheme is simplified; yellow, white, black and green, and thus all our focus goes straight to the woman and in particular to her face which is definitely the most interesting aspect of this litograph. The painful grimace on her face, with its teeth showing and eyebrows clenched is animalistic, primal, without contraints, and how different in that regard to the reserved aloofness and coldness of the elegant upper class ladies with their stiff corsets and fixed smiles.

The injection of morphine brings a rush of pleasure, followed by a drowsiness, sleepiness and dreaminess. We are witnessing this very journey; from the initial almost orgasmic pleasure to the realm of dreams where reality can’t hurt her anymore. Pleasure and dreams as means to forget it all. The flat surface and the woman’s grimace both show the Japanese influence on Western artists.

Paul Albert Besnard, Morphine Addicts or The Plume, 1887, etching, drypoint and aquatint

Grasset was just one of the fin de siecle artists who peeked behind the velvet curtains of the supposedly respectable society and painted the garish and ugly reality that was hiding there; alcoholism, prostitution, debauchery, drug use. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Kees van Dongen, Paul Albert Besnard and many others portrayed scenes of the seedy Parisian underbelly; the world of bohemians, outcasts and degenerates. The woman in this litograph -a prostitute and a morphine addict – is a stark contrast to the elegant upper class ladies seeping tea or strolling around which can be found in the art of Mary Cassatt. Paintings by Cassatt portray the visible reality, but Grasset is the voyeur who is peeking at the hidden, forbidden aspects of the late nineteenth French society.

Fashion Icons: Marianne Faithfull

Marianne Faithfull is one of my favourite fashion icons from this series. Her sixties-psychedelia-rock ‘n’ roll look was the first one I tried to emulate when I first got interested in the 1960s fashion and culture. So, a typical Marianne look would include a suede skirt, shirt, thin scarf and boots, or a floral print mini dress with boots. As you’ll see from my collages, she wore lots of different looks, from sequin dresses for her performances, to bell bottom trousers, nun-style black dresses with white collars, paisley shirts, dresses with bishop sleeves etc.

I haven’t read her autobiography yet, but I do like her music, from the simple and innocent mid sixties tunes such as ‘Come and Stay With Me‘ and ‘As Tears Go By’, to her ‘songs of experience’, sung in a husky voice, such as ‘Sister Morphine’ and ‘Working Class Hero’.

Brian Jones – A Rock ‘n’ Roll Dandy

Brian Jones; an eccentric, decadent, creative, fashionable, extravagant and intelligent person was the soul of The Rolling Stones. As much as he was famous for his musical accomplishments and visionary ideas regarding The Stones, Brian Jones had a peculiar fashion style, and became a style icon of the 1960s as important as Marianne Faithfull, Twiggy, Pattie Boyd or Jane Birkin were.

Brian Jones seems to have stood out even in his teens. His fair locks, wide smile, mysterious gaze, perfect manners, romantic charm and attentive conversation all made him loveable with the girls. It’s not a secret that he loved them too, having had his first child aged only seventeen. Brian was a complex individual never the less, Bill Wyman remembers “There were two Brian’s… one was introverted, shy, sensitive, deep-thinking… the other was a preening peacock, gregarious, artistic, desperately needing assurance from his peers… he pushed every friendship to the limit and way beyond”. If it wasn’t for the introverted, deep-thinking side we might wouldn’t of had all the original sounds and ideas that shaped the band and made it popular, and still, if it wasn’t for his artistic, arrogant and swaggering side, I wouldn’t be here writing about the amazing fashion style he had!

A rebel even as a child, Brian successfully defied his parents in every aspect; his numerous romances and offspring, musical ambitions, the way he behaved, dressed, even cut his hair all made his parents angry, but hey, that was the intention. He certainly didn’t let others dictate his life. Highly intelligent, Brian passed two A-levels and seven O-levels and with the slightest effort he would excel academically, but even with the alleged 133 IQ, Brian blew it all away, and replaced the boring schoolwork with rock ‘n’ roll. I’m most obligated for that, and I’m sure the history of rock ‘n’ roll is too.

Though eccentric and eye-catching, Brian’s fashion style wasn’t as peculiar from the beginning. In the period 1963-65. he mostly wore striped Mod tailored suits and fairly neat bowl haircut. Even then, in those stiff and ordinary ‘Beatles’ style suits, usually worn by all the group members, Brian stood out with his  engaging smile, arrogant gaze and dandy-esque hairstyle. As the years went on, and the mod scene slowly waned in favor of more original, more daring and eclectic style inspired by Psychedelia, Brian’s style changed and evolved too. The change is the most visible in the haircut; blonde locks became more untamed and longer. The trousers became tighter, the boots bigger and the black-white geometric prints dictated by Mod style were discarded in favour of colours, paisleys, floral print, oriental scarfs combined with crimson coloured velvet Victorian inspired blouses plus plenty of jewellery on top.

Antique dealer and Brian’s friend, Christopher Gibbs, remembers ”Brian did absolutely love dressing up (…) He had a tremendous lot of clothes and spent an awful amount of time preparing himself for late-night forays into the clubs.”

Despite Brian’s numerous affairs, the love of his life seems to have been nobody else but Anita Pallenberg; half Italian half German rock chick, as eccentric, as daring, as decadent and every bit as impulsive and tempestuous as Brian himself. Their relationship was turbulent and ardent for the most of its course, and yet the two lovers were more similar to each other than they could possibly imagine. Their fashion style was very similar too, with Anita having almost the same hairstyle as Brian. Now remembered as one of the iconic 1960s couples, Anita and Brian met in Munchen on 14th September 1965. when Anita approached Brian after a gig offering him a joint which he gladly accepted. They started talking and a few months later they could be seen together swanning around London in Brian’s Rolls Royce Silver Cloud, purchased from George Harrison. They moved into a sumptuously decorated flat at 1 Courtfield Road, South Kensington, which was, after their holiday in Morrocco the following year, embellished even more by rich fabrics and embroideries brought from there.

Embodiment of unconventional and eccentricity, Brian Jones indulged himself ever since his position in the band degraded. He entered fully into a life of debauchery, surrendering to the rock ‘n’ roll decadency. He became a ‘playboy prince’, an eccentric, somewhat arrogant and impulsive dandy, befriended art dealers and film directors, and started hanging out with rock elite, never hesitating to indulge his whims, no matter how eccentric they might be. Jones’ biographer wrote ‘Together they forged a revolutionary androgynous look, keeping their clothes together, mixing and matching not only fabrics and patterns, but cultures and even centuries. Jones would parade the streets of London wearing a Victorian lace shirt, floppy turn-of-the-century hat, Edwardian velvet frock coat, multi-coloured suede boots, accessorised scarves hanging from his neck, waist and legs along with lots of antique Berber jewellery.’

Marianne Faithfull also remembers some of the extravaganzas of the couple when it came to style:

”One of the best things about visiting Anita and Brian was watching them get ready to go out. What a scene! They were both dauntless shoppers and excessively vain. Hours and hours were spent putting on clothes and taking them off again. Heaps of scarves, hats, shirts and boots flew out of drawers and trunks. Unending trying on of outfits, primping and sashaying. They were beautiful, they were the spitting image of each other and not an ounce of modesty existed between two of them. I would sit mesmerised for hours, watching them preening in the mirror, trying on each other’s clothes. All roles and gender would evaporate in these narcissistic performances, where Anita would turn Brian into the Sun King, Francoise Hardy or the mirror image of herself.”

Brian Jones’ wardrobe was transformed almost over night. There was no place for the clean cut tailored suits and striped black-white trousers with modest details that evoked the Mod spirit of the mid ’60s anymore. No more was it ‘Paint it black’; paint it in colours would be the new motto. Hippie psychedelic decadency has by 1965. took its place; crimson velvet, tightly fitted jackets, fur coats, trousers with floral print, fur waistcoats, ethnic jewellery, abundance of rings, necklaces, floppy hats, big boots…

However, the progress of his fashion style went hand in hand with his destructive behavior. He sank deeply into the rock and roll decadence, indulging in alcohol and drugs, particularly LSD. Resentful and exhausted, he drove around London in his black Rolls Royce with the number plait DD666, the DD apparently standing for Devil’s Disciple. Strung out, betrayed, weakened and assailed by his asthma attacks, bored and withered, his song-writing and music composing talents slowly waned. His role in the band was pretty much reduced to adding exotic elements to the already existing songs.

Brian Jones, although arrogant, impulsive, gregarious and charismatic young man with Byron like quality when it came to romances, was still a very important figure not only in forming The Rolling Stones, but in the Rock and Roll scene and the development of the 1960s Swinging London culture in general. Remembered today for the mystery surrounding his death as much as for his crucial role in the music scene, Brian J0nes, the man who played every instrument and had any girl he desired, was as eccentric as he was intelligent. His life was as wild and glamorous as it was short, filled with unimaginable decadence, drugs, beautiful music, arts, party, clothes, sex and women. Brian Jones is a symbol of the 1960s, a decade he ruled and sadly died with.

My Inspirations for June

Things that have inspired me this month were paintings by Boris Kustodiev, Echo and the Bunnymen, 1960s psychedelic fashion, Brigitte Bardot, Kate Moss and the amazing movie Une Femme est Une Femme; not to mention that I’ve been quite inspired by Anna Karina’s lovely outfits. I’ve also watched the movie The Libertine and I quite liked it.

I’m having my Swinging London summer of love this summer, I’m listening to Pink Floyd, Syd Barrett, Yardbirds, llittle bit of The Rolling Stones, The Beatles’ album Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band and The Jimi Hendrix Experience all the time while gazing longingly at the beautiful dresses worn by Pattie Boyd, Marianne Faithfull and Twiggy. I’ve relished in movies such as A Hard Day’s Night and Tonight Let’s All Make Love in London. If you love the ’60s you must see them! For me, right now it’s 1967. and I’m enjoying.

 

 

Gimme Shelter – The End of The 1960s

There’s no doubt that the 1960s are my favourite decade of the 20th century. It’s a decade that symbolizes the birth of rock ‘n’ roll and hippie movement. For me it’s a wonderful decade inspiring in both musical and fashion sense. However, nothing lasts forever and so this decade came to an end but what it created culturally, musically and artistically can’t be erased.

The year 1965. was year zero for rock and roll. It was the year everything begun. In the early ’60s music for teenagers was sweet, safe and slightly soulless. Radio stations were filled with manufactured pop created by song writing teams in pop factories. Teenage girls’ idols were nice, proper white kids singing pop with a little beat such as Bobby Vee and Bobby Vinton who would went to American Bandstand and lip synched. That sound was manufactured by the American market for the British market. However, people were getting tired of it. The new generation of British teenagers craved for music with more raw, rebellious edge. They found what they were looking for in blues; music of the American black underclass, music emerged from suffering. British working class totally identified with the black America. Blues had that element of underground rage, something which British teens craved for.

Out with the old and in with the new. By 1965. a generation of rebellious teenagers who had grown up listening to black American blues had invented their own adrenaline charged sound: Rock. The Who brought attitude and volume. The Rolling Stones brought swagger and sex. The Kinks came on the music scene with their distorted guitar sound. Even Bob Dylan was inspired by the new sound and with his leather jacket and hairstyle he was almost like a Rolling Stone wanna-be.

It was playing blues that melted the emotional polar frost of the 1950s post-war English austerity. Because of its emphasis on improvisations it unlocked the creativity in young artists playing it. In 1962. a band was formed in suburb west London – The Rolling Stones when the singer Mick Jagger and guitarist Keith Richards bonded over a shared love of the blues. When The Stones became more well known they stopped playing at venues such as The Crawdaddy Club. Instead, they gave up their place for the new band whose sound would be the first to denote the true Rock sound – band The Who.

The Who combined the rebellious spirit, Mod-scene image with the bold self-expression of the Pop Art. They were also very interesting because they made fashion statements with their clothes. Guitarist Pete Townshend wore particularly bold and memorable gear. He wore a jacket made out of a flag, for example and the drummer Keith Moon wore Pop Art T-shirts with targets and hearts. Pop Art was popular because it was not as confined as other art movements and consequently became an important part of 1960s culture, and an important part of Swinging London as well.  With The Who exploring more provocative imagery and ideas, it was clear that the new music movement was taking shape.

Swinging London or the capital of cool, as it was sometimes called, was a place to be in the 1960s. After the initial blues-inspired Rock came something more avant-garde, Rock evolved and psychedelic-art rock emerged from the sound of Pink Floyd with Syd Barrett exploring what he could do with his guitar. In 1967. Pink Floyd released a single Arnold Layne, a song about a clothes-stealing transvestite, introducing a new concept in Rock music – psychedelia. This was rock meets the mad hatter’s tea party. Pink Floyd’s debut album The Piper at The Gates of Dawn was released in August 1967; at the peak of London’s Summer of love. Pink Floyd had previously recorded a single See Emily Play on 23rd May 1967, and released it less than a month later. The song was about a psychedelic schoolgirl whom Syd Barrett had reportedly seen after taking acid and falling asleep in the woods. Characteristics of psychedelic rock in this song are use of echo and reverb, whimsical lyrics and the slide-guitar work done by Syd using a plastic ruler.

Syd Barrett enrolled in Camberwell College of Arts in London in summer of 1964. to study painting. Camberwell proved to be a hothouse of ideas. Actually, art schools developed what we today know as the 1960s Swinging London for they were the place where the creativity came from. Education authorities put those who did not fit in elsewhere into art collages. Entrance qualifications were vague, with academic scores waived when portfolios showed promise. Art schools produced gifted painters, promising fashion designers, artists and musicians. Even in art schools, the ground for psychedelia was set with drab post-war colours discarded in favour of violent pinks, aquas and reds. Art college students liked their music likewise amplified; sharp, short and shocking. Syd felt that art was made of the moment and the springboard to the next work and next moment. Other notable musicians that were attending art schools were Pete Townshend, Eric Clapton, John Lennon and Ray Davies.

So at around 1967. psychedelic culture prevailed over the Mod culture that dominated during the first half of the decade. The Beatles’ album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band released in June 1967, just before the peak of summer of love, marks the transition between pop to the more psychedelic sound. Psychedelia might have opened minds to new ideas, sounds and images but it also propelled rock music into world of hedonism and excess. The Who came to America in summer of 1967. They shocked the hippies with their destructive and aggressive performance but Monterey soon established the festival as an arena for rock ‘n’ roll music, but it also represented the climax of summer of love for the optimism of the ’60s gave way to more volatile and uncertain times.

Utopia of the ’67 could not possibly last for it was not universally accepted. Psychedelic youth and hippies were only one segment of society, and only one fragment of it. You could just feel the change in the air; the atmosphere changed and it all became much more politicized. The Woodstock ’69 festival would see the sun set on the sixties hippie dream. By that time the business started to be more in control of the music; the freedom of the sixties was lost forever. It was a beginning of something; a beginning of the end.

The Rolling Stones quickly dragged inspiration from the changing mood and uncertainty of those times. They were one of the few bands that found creative zeal in the darkness. There was a new world going on but The Stones weren’t afraid to embrace it. They channeled all that darkness with morbid relish in one song; Sympathy for the devil. It was the theme that fascinated them since they dipped into blues. However, The Stones would be plunged into the darkness of their own in a year marked by controversy and tragedy, from the mysterious death of the guitarist Brian Jones to the murderous chaos of the Altamont festival in California in December 1969. when they recruited Hell’s Angles to provide the security. Hell’s Angels soon caused turmoil and the man was murdered as the cameras rolled. The innocence of the ’60s was lost forever.

In the song Gimme shelter it seems as if The Stones were asking for a shelter, some place safe from the turmoil, darkness and uncertainty that overshadowed the Sun like the dark clouds. (The floods is threat’ning/ My very life today/ Gimme, gimme shelter/ Or I’m gonna fade away) Another song from the same album Let it Bleed released in ’69 called You can’t always get what you want also reflects the atmosphere of the time. Each verse discusses a topic relevant to the ’60s: love, politics and drugs. The song captures the essence of the initial optimism and the eventual disillusion, followed by the resigned pragmatism of the chorus. (I saw her today at the reception / In her glass was a bleeding man / She was practiced at the art of deception/ Well I could tell by her blood-stained hands.) Rock provided a soundtrack for the changing times. It had become an incredible political and artistic force. It had given music volume and attitude.

Still, the dark atmosphere at the dusk of the sixties had impact on other artists, such as Syd Barrett. Compared to Pink Floyd’s first album The piper at the gates of dawn that mirrors the optimism and decadence of the Swinging London, Syd’s main contribution to the second album was the song Jugband blues whose lyrics show that inside his mind he was still acutely self-aware despite the madness and darkness that had begun to engulf him. The dusk of the sixties proved to be a fruitful period not just for The Rolling Stones but for Barrett as well for its product was his solo album The Madcap laughs.

The Madcap laughs, released in January 1970. but recorded between 28. May 1968. and 5. August ’69, was Barrett’s debut solo album. It was warmly received and the madness of king Syd seemed to have touched a nerve with a generation who had seen the end of the decade take a darker turn with Altamont, the bombing of Vietnam and apparent failure of hippie culture. Its lyrics are introspective and range from lovely, almost child-like songs about love and friendship (Terrapin: I really love you/ And I mean you/ The star above you/ Crystal blue) to deeper and darker subject that mirrored what he was feeling at the time; I’ll take Dark Globe as an example; its a cliche to say that the opening lines are memorable, no, they are much more than that, they are haunting and loveable and strange, dark and crooked at the same time. (Oh where are you now/ Pussy willow that smiled on this leaf/ When I was alone/ You promised to stone from your heart.) In other songs he expresses his sadness and loneliness (You feel me/ Away far/ Too empty/ Oh so alone, I want to come home), something which young people at the time could relate to for they felt slightly betrayed and lost at looking at the ’60s the golden years of their youth gone by.

1960s faded away, but they left us with achievements that cannot be denied. They produced numerous good bands, ventured into unknown areas of music, brought new and daring fashions and shaped attitudes and ideals that had not been forgotten despite the time gone by.