Following the Golden Age, the use of tobacco in artwork was not very prominent. The decline of the popularity is most likely due to the influence of Rococo age of elegance, which made snuff the preferred choice (Tempel 207). Snuff never held a significant symbol as cigars, cigarettes, and pipes did when they appeared in paintings. French artist Jean-Baptiste-Simeon Chardin, who was inspired by the artwork from the Golden Age, was an exception and occasionally included pipes into his artwork (Tempel 209). One of his pieces that include a pipe is called Smoking Kit with Drinking Pot. It is a still life but the pipe lacks any symbolic meaning.
In the late 18th century and early 19th century, smoking had different symbolic meanings in a given context. During this time men were the primary smokers and women were expected to be the ideal mother, mistress and smoking was not an acceptable habit (Tempel 210). In the Romantic period people thought that smoking held a close association with being intellectual. An artwork that exemplifies this time period is Edouard Manet, Stéphane Mallarmé. This painting shows a man who is assumed to be upper class with a lit cigar in his hand and that same hand resting on top of an open book. His eyes are looking off into the distance seeming to be deep in thought. Tempel makes a point that in this particular painting smoking is understood as part of a modern lifestyle even though smoking has been around for centuries (210).
The impressionists painted many different scenes of everyday life that included a cigar, cigarette, or pipe; but did put symbolic importance in them (Tempel 210) The post-impressionist brought back the symbolic meaning of the cigar, pipe, and cigarette. One notable painting was done by Vincent Van Gogh called Skull with a Burning Cigarette. Although this painting seems to be an anti-smoking warning, it was more of a sick, practical joke that was seeing a trend during this time (Tempel 211-214). The artist to jumpstart this trend was Edvard Munch with his painting called Self-Portrait. It shows the artist with a cigarette against a dark background and an eerie look across his face. Munch used the smoke as a symbol of psychological problems (Tempel 214).
By the 20th century cigarettes, cigars, and pipes all had their own specific meanings that had been developed throughout history. By playing off these meanings, artists were able to convey a fuller understanding of an artwork to the viewer. For example, the cigar came to represent a social status symbol. By adding a cigar to a painting, the artist was able to show the social class and power differences. Heinrich Maria Davringhausen’s The Black Marketeer shows a boss who has many cigars in a box and a lit one at the edge of his desk. This demonstrates the unequal relations between the employer and the employee (Tempel 214). Pablo Picasso also used the pipe in his piece called The Poet. This painting relies on the inseparable connection between literature and the pipe to give the viewer a better understanding of the painting (214).
With the rise of Pop Art, the art seemed to become more cynical. The clichés that evolved from the tobacco industry were targets of the pop art culture. Mel Ramos and Tom Wesselmann are two notable artists who were known for their humorous works that poke fun at the industry (216). Because of the stigma that has become related to smoking many pop art has shed a negative light on smoking. Claes Oldenburg’s sculpture Giant Fagends shows how the addiction to cigarettes exemplifies the wasteful consumer based society (216). Duane Hanson’s Supermarket Shopper shows a middle-aged woman who seems miserable. This piece shows how the present day people view smokers: ruled by the addiction and lack will-power (216).
Various forms of modern art have also included cigarettes. On display at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in March 2009, was hundreds of Marlboro packs neatly folded and strung. Jac Leiner’s Lung shows how his own personal addiction and the sickening amount of cigarettes that were unconsciously consumed throughout three years (Brett). Another different piece of artwork on display at the St. Louis Art Museum is called Why Can’t I Stop Smoking shows a uncompleted picture on a large canvas with the title of the painting written on the top. It shows how the addicting power of cigarette can, so much so that the artist cannot overcome the addiction to do something that he presumably loves to do, art.
Smoking, Women, and Art
editDuring the Golden Age, paintings with women and pipes were thought to symbolize misfortune. All the artwork in the 17th Century Dutch Golden Age artworks with women included in the paintings were not intended to make women look bad, but to send a moral message that the foolish behaviors will lead people into misfortune (Tempel 207). Interestingly enough though, women are rarely the ones in possession of the pipe in the 17th century Dutch art.
During the 18th century, artwork with pipes went out of fashion in the western world, but still remained to depict an exoticism (Tempel 210). In Jean-Etienne Liotard’s A French Woman in Turkish Costume in a Harmam Instructing her Servant it shows a woman with a long pipe in a position of authority. In the “exotic world” women with pipes were not used in the same context as in the western world.
In the 19th century, artists, caricaturists, fine potters, and even novelist included women smoking in their respected art forms. Even though it was becoming more common, the smoking women were shown in a negative light (Mitchell 294). The images of women smoking were socially no accepted. During this time, artwork that incorporated smoking was kept in men’s rooms such as the smoking saloon, the billiard room, and the library (Tempel 210). The Impressionists painters used the pipe as something that set apart the social status from the male and female. In Georges Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon on La Grande Jatte the male in the white suit holds a cigar and even in this snapshot of everyday life there is an implicit hierarchy between the him and the woman who is with him (Tempel 210).
Eventually women were depicted with a pipe, cigar, and cigarettes. Initially these women were prostitutes in the artwork of Vincent Van Gogh and Henri Toulouse- Lautrec. They were shown with very white faces (presumably white make up to cover up signs of Syphillis) and with smoke trying to attract male clients (Tempel 211). Some artists were out to change that social norm of women smoking in the 19th century. Frances Benjamin Johnston was one notable woman who studied art for many years in Paris then returned home and discovered photography. Her piece titled Self- Portrait depicts her with a holding a cigarette in one hand and a beer stein in the other. She is not dressed provocatively like most females who were associated with alcohol and cigarettes during this time would have been. She is instead showing the aspects of her life. She is going against the social norms of the woman’s image and yet still manages to come off as a middle class woman and not as a prostitute (Mitchell 300). Jane Atché was known for her color lithograph of women. Her works were published commercially shows women smoking, but never any hints of sexual tension. Instead the woman is sophisticated and enjoying her cigarette (Mitchell 302).
With the push of women artist Frances Benjamin Johnston and Jane Atché, women smokers were becoming more socially acceptable. Eventually smoking for women grew into a phenomenon and was most exemplified in the roaring twenties. It seemed as though a woman had to be smoking to appear chic and sophisticated (Tempel, 211). In the 20th century meanings of the different forms of tobacco (i.e. cigar, cigarette, and pipe) held different underlying meanings. Therefore female prostitutes shown in a painting with a cigar (which stood for wealth and power) held a negative meaning. According to Benno Tempel, Bertold Brecht explained it best through his words “Ein grosser Geist beliby in ‘ner Hure stecken’ (a mighty genius, stuck on prostitution)” (215). The type of tobacco that the women were smoking held different meanings even in the same time period.
In the 20th century of the wide use of women in cigarette advertising, Mel Ramos created artwork that showed naked women on cigars. Tom Wesselmann used the clichés of sex and cigarettes and made artwork that showed an exposed breast behind an ashtray. Smoking began losing its attractiveness and it was clear though the artwork that was being created during this time (Tempel 216). Some artist in the present day is trying to fight this idea that smoking was becoming a health hazard and people were considering smoking almost as a taboo. Sarah Lucas’s photo titled Fighting Fire with Fire shows herself with a cigarette in the corner of her mouth. This one picture sums up the progress of the relationship between woman and cigarettes. According to Benno Tempel this one photo shows that “at times when society tries to create taboos. Art can break through them” (217). With the a cigarette in her mouth, she reflects the ideas that Frances Benjamin Johnston did in the 19th century.
Dutch Art
editThe ordinary person in 17th century Holland viewed tobacco as a novelty and associated smoking with social deviance. A divide existed between the medicinal use of tobacco, which was widely accepted, and recreational use, which was seen as low class and inappropriate for more respected citizens including church and government leaders (68-69). Johann Neander’s Tabacologia, written in 1622, demonstrates the prevalent belief that tobacco held curative and preventative properties for a wide range of diseases (69-70). However, smoking’s prevalence among sailors, soldiers, and the rural poor along with its intoxicating effects led to an association with the lowliest people (70-71). Thus, smoking became a tool for artists to designate someone’s rank in society, and painters including Adriaen Brouwer, the Ostade brothers, and David Teniers II employed smoking in their portrayals of the low classes. Smoking also became a comedic prop for painters especially in festival and burlesque paintings (73-74). INSERT IMPORTANCE Ivan Gaskell argues that (If we trace the imagery of topsy-turvydom in Dutch art we find tobacco to be a key element in scenes of comic disorder) (74).
Jan Steen, perhaps the most famous comic painter during the 17th century, often included pipe smoking, which took on sexual connotations in his paintings of brothels and taverns. For example, a man packing tobacco into a pipe along with pipes leaning against chamberpots symbolized sexual flirtations and intercourse. These were often used for a comic effect, especially in illustrations of robbers stealing from intoxicated patrons of brothels and taverns.
Moreover, women smoking in Steen’s paintings subverted cultural norms and added an additional comic effect as men almost exclusively smoked during that time period. Short pipes, especially, implied the most debase women and the ugliest prostitutes (75). Moreover, pipes, especially a pair of crossed pipes, symbolized rhetoricians—guilds of actors and poets that held festivals emphasizing pleasure. Several of Steen’s paintings were created to illustrate proverbs including: (as the old sing, so the young pipe (soo de ouden songen, soo pijpen de jongen))(75)—meaning the youth will pick up poor habits like smoking by imitating adults. Finally, Steen often included negative implications of smoking even when he painted smoking for a comic effect by depicting smokers next to a beggar’s crutches or whipping branches to reiterate to the viewer that smoking will lead to “punishment, poverty, and beggary) (76).
Because of economic interests in importing tobacco from the New World to Europe and even starting domestic tobacco farming, Amsterdam merchants worked to reduce smoking stigmatization. By the late 17th century, smoking long-stemmed and polished pipes became acceptable for more respectable males while the lower classes smoked from cruder and shorter pipes. Snuff also gained popularity, and depictions of smoking and tobacco in paintings and drawings became more representative of the mundane and everyday than comically absurd situations and social outcasts (76-77).
Art-o-mat
editArt-o-mat machines sell pocket-size art pieces for $5.00 throughout the world. The apparatuses are converted cigarette vending machines, which are now banned in the United States. Currently, 90 machines exist with one in Quebec, one in Vienna, and the rest throughout the United States. Private businesses, cultural centers, art museums, universities, and other locations possess Art-o-mats, and they receive $1.50 for each piece sold. Some renowned sites include New York City’s Whitney Museum of American Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles.
Over three hundred artists from ten different countries have created original artwork for the machines. $2.50 goes to the artist whenever someone buys their work. The pieces come in white containers the size of a cigarette pack (roughly two inches by three inches) and wrapped in cellophane. They range from miniature sculptures to jewelry to tiny paintings. Almost every media imaginable has been used including wood, glass, watercolors on canvas, clay, Styrofoam, magnets, stained-glass, and bronze (newsweek). Contributing sculptor Jules Vital said, “This project gives artists the opportunity to get their work into major venues, and it's cheap for buyers.)(newsweek)
http://www.newsweek.com/id/60175 Clark Whittington built the first machine for his 1997 art show at a café in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The original machine sold Whittington's black & white photographs for $1.00, and Cynthia Giles, the owner of the café, requested that the machine remain after the show ended. Shortly afterward, Whittington formed Artists in Cellophane (A.I.C.) with other artists from the Winston-Salem area to build more art vending machines and to create pieces for them.
Today, A.I.C. sponsors the Art-o-mat machines with the goal of increasing art consumption by packaging art in an easily accessible manner. Whittington hopes collectors will form a habit of art buying and become interested in buying larger pieces from local artists. He collects the remaining $1.00 from each purchase to maintain the machines. A.I.C. seeks to unite art with consumerism and commerce and looks to expand to new locations and recruit new artists (website).