Vincent Van Gogh – Café Table with Absinthe
A seemingly innocuous still-life painting that packs a punch. It needs no further information to impart its disastrous intent and meaning. It has a feeling of menace and loneliness.
In an interior setting of a French Café, we see a view through a window out towards a French boulevard with people walking past. On the table are a plain clear bottle of water and a prepared glass of Absinthe with its unmistakable greenish hue! A part of a single chair is seen, but not the imbiber, suggesting a lone drinker. Van Gogh very cleverly demonstrates reflections on the marble tabletop. The lack of accoutrements of an Absinthe spoon or sugar hints at a cheap, rougher Absinthe for the lower and poorer classes indicating that getting drunk and taking away momentarily life’s miseries were its intent.
Van Gogh’s rather thinned-down paints give the painting a watery look bolstering and mimicking the sickly greenish tones of diluted Absinthe. The blue and purple tones with slightly warmer brown colours add to the despairing effects of the demon drink!
Absinthe has a high alcohol content requiring water to make it palatable, turning the liquid an opaque green, and is often referred to as ‘The Green Fairy’! It was very popular with the masses and artists! It had a bad reputation in France and was eventually banned. In London society, Gin was the tipple that presented a menace. It was known as ‘Mothers ruin’. Absinth was not banned in England.
WARNING: Always drink alcohol responsibly. Alcohol may harm your health as well as your creativity!
