ABSINTHE DRINKER
Buveur d'Absinthe
1901
Oil on canvas
73 x 54 cm
St.Petersburg. The State Hermitage Museum
In the French art of the early 20th century, there was a great interest in "vicious" characters. Picasso had many predecessors and a special attention should be drawn to the influence of Toulouse-Lautrec. Many paintings were devoted to the theme of absinthe, the drink that became a kind of fetish in Paris at the turn of the century. Many special properties were ascribed to this strong wormwood liqueur, often referred to as the "green fairy": it was thought that people addicted to absinthe suffered not just from simple alcohol abuse, but from its special "sublime" form, and that they immersed in a world of hallucinations and fantasies. So thematically Picasso is still moving in the "mainstream" of the epoch. However, the images created by the young artist are sharply dramatic. For example, in this painting, the most striking detail is a giant right hand of a woman, who is absorbed in her thoughts and tries to embrace and protect herself with this hand.
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