Young Bohemia

Preface to Henri Murger's Bohemians of the Latin Quarter

2012-02-11T17:47:00.000-08:00

The roots of Bohemian culture go back centuries. Here some excerpts of the preface to Henri Murger's Bohemeians of the Latin Quarter :

Photo of Henri Murger.

...The class of Bohemians referred to in this book are not a race of today, they have existed in all climes and ages, and can claim an illustrious decent. In ancient Greece, to go no further back in this genealogy, there existed a celebrated Bohemian, who lived from hand to mouth round the fertile country of Ionia, eating the bread of charity, and halting in the evening to tune beside some hospitable hearth the harmonious lyre that had sung the loves of Helen and the fall of Troy. Descending the steps of time modern Bohemia finds ancestors at every artistic and literary epoch....

Today, as of old, every man who enters on an artistic career, without any other means of livihood than his art itself, will be forced to walk in the paths of Bohemia. The greater number of our contemporaries who display the noblest blazonry of art have been Bohemians, and amidst their calm and prosperous glory they often recall, perhaps with regret, the time when, climbing the verdant slope of youth, they had no other fortune in the sunshine of their twenty years than courage, which is the virtue of the young, and hope, which is the wealth of the poor.

For the uneasy reader, for the timorous citizen, for all those for whom an "i" can never be too plainly dotted in definition, we repeat as an axiom: "Bohemia is a stage in artistic life; it is the preface to the Academy, the Hotel Dieu, or the Morgue."

We will add that Bohemia only exists and is only possible in Paris.

Bust of Henri Murger.

...Bohemians are a race of obstinate dreamers for whom art has remained a faith and not a profession; enthusiastic folk of strong convictions, whom the sight of a masterpiece is enough to throw into a fever, and whose loyal heart beats high in the presence of all that is beautiful...

...they die for the most part, decimated by that disease to which science does not dare give its real name, want. If they would, however, many could escape from this fatal denouement which suddenly terminates their life at an age when ordinary life is only beginning. It would suffice for that for them to make a few concessions to the stern laws of necessity; for them to know how to duplicate their being, to have within themselves two natures, the poet ever dreaming on the lofty summits where the choir of inspired voices are warbling, and the man, worker- out of his life, able to knead his daily bread.

Axiom: "Unknown Bohemia is not a path, it is a blind alley."
Montmartre with Sacre Couer in background.

...the amateur Bohemians are not the least curious. They find in Bohemian life an existence full of seductions, not to dine every day, to sleep in the open air on wet nights, and to dress in nankeen in the month of December seems to them the paradise of human felicity, and to enter it some abandon the family home, and others the study which leads to an assured result. They suddenly turn their backs upon an honorable future to seek the adventures of a hazardous career. But as the most robust cannot stand a mode of living that would render Herules consumptive, they soon give up the game, and, hastening back to the paternal roast joint, marry their little cousins, set up as a notary in a town of thirty thousand inhabitants, and by their fireside of an evening have the satisfaction of relating their artistic misery with the magniloquence of a traveler narrating a tiger hunt. The amateurs are more wretched than the real Bohemians, who, never having had any other resources, have at least those of intelligence.
The Moulin Rouge.

We now come to the real Bohemia; those who compose it are really amongst those called by art, and have the chance of being amongst its elect. This Bohemia, like the others, bristles with perils, two abysses flank it on either side--- poverty and doubt. But between these two gulfs there is at least a road leading to a goal which the Bohemians can see with their eyes, pending the time when they shall touch it with their hand.

To arrive at their goal, which is a settled one, all roads serve, and the Bohemians know how to profit by even the accidents of the route. Rain or dust, cloud or sunshine, nothing checks these bold adventurers. whose sins are backed by virtue. Their mind is kept ever on alert by their ambition, which sounds a charge in front and urges them to the assault of the future; incessantly at war with necessity, their invention always marching with lighted match blows up the obstacle almost before it incommodes them. Their daily existence is a work of genius, a daily problem which they always succeed in solving by the aid of audacious mathematics. They would have forced Harpagon to lend them money, and have found truffles on the raft of "Medusa." At need, too, they know how to practice abstinence with all the virtue of an anchorite, but if a slice of fortune falls into their hands you will see them at once mounted on the most ruinous of fancies, loving the youngest and prettiest, drinking the oldest and best, and never finding sufficient windows to throw their money out of. Then, when their last crown is dead and buried, they begin to dine again at that table spread by chance, at which their place is always laid, and, preceded by a pack of tricks, go poaching on all the callings that have any connection with art, hunting from morn till night that wild beast called a five-franc piece.

You may read the entire text of Henri Murger's Bohemians of the Latin Quarter, which inspired Giaccomo Puccini to write his famous opera La Boheme, here: http://www.bohemianlit.com/full_text/murger/contents.htm

Don Quixote: The Grand Bohemian

2012-02-11T17:42:00.000-08:00

Don Quixote by Picasso.

To Don Quixote

Don Quixote, old errant knight, grand bohemian,

The vile cross crowd pokes pointless fun at you;

Your death was pure martyrdom, your whole life poetry,

And the windmills, good my king, were well and truly wrong.

Keep the armour of your faith, keep riding

That unreal charger I adore.

Keep at it, harvester sublime! Now the law's

Shortcomings are worse than they were.

We cheer you on and follow in your steps,

We, the mad-haired poet-saints fragrant with verbena.

Help us to take the high walls of fantasy,

So that soon, flying in the face of treachery,

The winged standard of poetry must

Flutter over feeble Reason's dust.

-Paul Verlaine March 1861
"Flee not you cowardly giants! One knight alone attacks you!"

Don Quixote by Salvador Dali'.

Paul Verlaine refers to Don Quixote, the champion of dreams and illusions, as the "grand Boheme." His entire life was poetry; a work of artistic genius and yes, those confounded windmills were very, very wrong! Inept reason has it's shortcomings and the only real conquering nation is the imagination. Poetry and art will one day eliminate the "reality" that is accepted by conventional society and will liberate our dreams, fantasies and creative souls.

Verlaine tells Quixote to keep the faith. Keep the armour of his faith. The armour of an artist, of a poet! So that one day a creative banner will flutter over feeble reason's dust.

Never before has the world needed a Don Quixote and never before has the entire world needed a quixotic solution to its endless problems. And yes, never before has the bohemian culture and spirit been so needed in a world gone ultraconservative, mad with corporate greed, upon which lives seven billion people, most of whom are drowning in a sea of conformity and homogenization.

Blaise Cendrars was quoted as saying: "I detest the lot of most people today, who live like parts of a machine, who live only to keep the gears of society pointlessly turning. I pity them with all my heart. In Paris, I have been saddened as never before by the anonymous crowd I see from my window engulfing itself in the metro or pouring out of the metro at fixed hours. Truly, that isn't a life. It isn't human and must come to a stop. It is slavery."

The great aesthete John Ruskin spoke out against the industrial revolution and its crimes against humanity and its creative force, but his words hold more meaning in this day of corporate greed and globalization. He said that humans are losing their individuality, our creativity, and this makes us feel meaningless. Modern humankind does not live a full filled life. We are all slaves. We sold ourselves to live in a world of exploitation. We can live a full life through art. Art has in it that which makes life worth living. We must rely on the redeeming power of art!

L'Ultima "La Boheme C'est Nous"

2012-02-11T17:35:00.000-08:00

We believe in the transformative power of art, music and poetry!
We were fired by poetry and the thirst for life!
Sotto il segno della "Boheme".
"In truth, artists live alongside, on the margin of life and humanity." -Blaise Cendrars
"Artists, today like yesterday, more often walk down the side of the road than straight down the center. They remain what they have always been, that which makes them so unique: displaced persons." -Dan Franck

Be Drunk by Charles Baudelaire: "La Boheme C'e Nous 3"

2012-02-11T17:28:00.001-08:00

Be Drunk by Charles Baudelaire
You have to be always drunk. That's all there is to it...it's the only way. So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks your back and bends you to the earth, you have to be continually drunk.
But on what? Wine, poetry, or virtue, as you wish. But be drunk.
And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace or the green grass of a ditch, in the mournful solitude of your room, you wake again, drunkenness already diminishing or gone, ask the wind, the wave the star, the bird, the clock, everything that is flying, everything that isgroaning, everything that is rolling, everything that is singing, everything that is speaking...
ask what time it is and wind, wave, star, bird, clock will answer you: "It is time to be drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves of time, be drunk, be continually drunk! On wine, on poetry or virtue as you wish."

" La Boheme C'est Nous 2"

2012-02-11T17:23:00.001-08:00

The Bohemian needs to live for the multiplication of sensation. A Bohemian needs to make a romantic search for real feeling and experience.

Cathy Callahan and Peter Lee.

"The term 'bohemian' has come to be very commonly accepted in our day as the description of a certain kind of literary gypsy, no matter in what language he or she speaks, or what city he or she inhabits... A bohemian is simply an artist or litterateur who, consciously or unconsciously, secedes from conventionality in life and in art." -Westminster Review, 1862.

"La Boheme C'e Nous"

2012-02-11T17:09:00.000-08:00

Before I roll up my sleeves and make a serious attempt to document the entire history of "ma patrie" Bohemia (which could literally take a life time), please allow me a few brief vain minutes to introduce our bohemian artist tribe, or in the case of these photos, our early days, which were a looong time ago. Many years ago, we bonded as a group of creative souls and we experienced the joys and pains of the New York art world together. We grew together and we showed together often, over many years. We have not shown together in some time, but we are now negotiating a group show at the Kafana gallery in Amsterdam, which is the off shoot of the W139 Gallery. It will be a great honor indeed to show at the Kafana Gallery because any connection to the famous W139 Gallery is a great honor.

Chopper Happel, Stu Stelzer, Ryan Brown
Many of the people in these photos have grown and experienced, some have married and taken on more of the trappings of a conventional life, but a few (and I hope all) are still Bohemian in their hearts and minds.

The real reason to post these are one, to document the experiences, and two, so that my artist brothers and sisters can download some of the photos I took of them back in the day when we wold gather in my art studio near Union Square Park, drink and partake in Bohemian joviality, and discuss art all night. We did not talk so much about art history as much as current art that was being shown then and there in New York. We went to see everything in Chelsea, and Williamsburg and Bushwick, etc. We drank the beer at the openings and dug the artwork being exhibited. We had the same joys , but also the same discouragements. We actually thought we could shape the world in the image of our own imaginations!

EXPLORATIONS INTO BOHEMIA: Jolly Old England

2012-02-10T16:12:00.001-08:00

Radio transmission: Exploring Bohemia in Jolly Old England.

Map of Bohemia from 1896.

This BBC In Our Time broadcast on Bohemianism was broadcast back on 9 Oct 2003.

Listen to 45 minute broadcast here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/p005491s

This explanation of the broadcast is from the BBC's web site:

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the 19th century Parisian philosophy of life lived for art. In 1848 the young Parisian Henri Murger wrote of his bohemian friends: Their daily existence is a work of genius...they know how to practice abstinence with all the virtue of an anchorite, but if a slice of fortune falls into their hands you will see them at once mounted on the most ruinous fancies, loving the youngest and prettiest, drinking the oldest and best, and never finding sufficient windows to throw their money out of. Then, when their last crown is dead and buried...they go poaching on all the callings that have any connection with art, hunting from morn till night that wild beast called a five franc piece.

Bohemianism meant a life lived for art, it meant sexual liberation and freedom from social constraint, but it also meant dodging the landlord and burning your poems to stay warm. How did the garret-philosophy of the Parisian Latin Quarter take over the drawing rooms of Bloomsbury and Chelsea in the United Kingdom, and why did a FRench war with necessity emerge as a British life-style as art?

With Hermione Lee, Goldsmith's Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford and biographer of Virginia Woolf, Virginia Nicholson, author of Among the Bohemians: Experiments in Living 1900-1939, Graham Robb, writer and biographer of Balzac, Victor Hugo and Rimbaud.

The Lions of Bohemia

2012-02-10T06:41:00.000-08:00

Please take a good look at our new LINKS section "The Lions Of Bohemia."

Classic Motion Film Poster For The Box Office Hit "The Machiavellian Prince and Protector of Bohemia" Starring the following characters: Dirty Harry Warhol , A Sly Fox and a Couple of Horny Lions.

Explosive Acts: Toulouse-Lautrec, Oscar Wilde, Felix Feneon and the Art and Anarchy of the Fin de siecle by David Sweetman

2012-02-09T15:24:00.000-08:00

Explosive Acts: Toulouse-Lautrec, Oscar Wilde, Felix Feneon and the Art and Anarchy of the Fin de Siecle by David Sweetman.

"Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec is known as the disfigured and dangerously self-destructive artist who recorded prolifically the louche world of sexy night club dancers, lounging whores, and drunken bohemian merriment. Both in his life and art he is thought to embody the climate of inebriated hilarity and excess of the fin de siecle."

"But as David Sweetman shows in this definitive work, there was another Toulouse-Lautrec, a committed and concerned man who moved in a secret community of anarchist revolutionaries, whose work betrayed a deep concern for human suffering, an artist who etched his sympathy for fallen women and lesbians into his portraits, and remained loyal to the disgraced Oscar Wilde when the poet was abandoned and reviled by most. Sweetman's enlightened study of Toulouse-Lautrec has uncovered a man whose alliance with radicals and outspoken social critics (such as Felix Feneon) is implicit in his work."

Les Police des Escrivains et Artists; oil on canvas, by Charles Sabba. In private collection of Oliver Samuel Hendry.

"Toulouse-Lautrec was a man on the cutting edge of radical art."

Simon & Schuster, New York, 1999. Buy here: http://www.amazon.com/Explosive-Acts-Toulouse-Lautrec-Feneon-Anarchy/dp/0684811790/ref=sr_1_sc_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1328877627&sr=1-1-spell

Henri Toulouse-Lautrec: Explosive Acts

2012-02-09T15:23:00.001-08:00

Wanted By The FBI: Henri Toulouse-Lautrec; fingerprint ink on FBI Wanted Poster; by Charles Sabba.

In the 1890's, anarchism had become a major presence in French life. Many intellectuals were fueling this political movement, including the Russian Prince Peter Kroppotkin and Pierre-Joeseph Proudhon. Many artists besides Henri Toulouse-Lautrec were known anarchists or held anarchist sympathies, including one of the most successful of the Bohemian artists, Gustave Courbet. Other anarchist artists were Camille Pissarro, Paul Signac, Carlo Carra', Marcel Duchamp, and Francis Picabia to name a few.

Henri; fingerprint ink on police fingerprint card; 2010; by Charles Sabba. In private collection.

In later years, Andre Breton would admit that anarchism was one of the seeds of Surrealism. The Surrealists were not considered Bohemians, although they certainly embodied the legacy of Bohemianism. Two of the many Bohemian attributes that they acquired or were influenced by were the Bohemian fusion of art and life, that is, the belief that art and life had to be lived in a seamless unity and anarchist politics.

L'Action d'Art; fingerprint ink on FBI wanted poster; 2010; by Charles Sabba.

L'Action d'Art was one of the many periodicals in the anarchist press in the years prior to 1914. In 1913, the paper declared in describing its political position: "We are individualists and refractaires... For us revolt is the action of art and each one will demonstrate it according to his temperament."

Oscar Wilde; Explosive Acts

2012-02-09T15:15:00.000-08:00

OscarWolde, by Henri Toulouse-Lautrec.

"One should either be a work of art or wear a work of art." -Oscar Wilde

Police News detailing the trial of Oscar Wilde.

"Beauty is the only thing that time cannot harm." -Oscar Wilde

"The artist should never try to be popular. Rather, the public should be more artistic." -Oscar Wilde.
From Oscar Wilde's The Soul of Man Under Socialism, published in 1891: "A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament. Its beauty comes from the fact that the author is what he is. It has nothing to do with the fact that other people want what they want. Indeed, the moment that an artist takes notice of what other people want, and tries to supply the demand, he ceases to be an artist, and becomes a dull or an amusing craftsman, an honest or a dishonest tradesman. He has no further claim to be considered as an artist."

Felix Feneon

2012-02-09T15:09:00.001-08:00

Portrait of Felix Feneon, oil on canvas, 1890, 73.5 x 92.5 cm, by Paul Signac. Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Born in Torino, Italia 1861 and died in 1944, Felix Feneon was an art critic, writer, aesthete and anarchist who lived in Montmartre. Feneon attended the Impressionist exhibition of 1886 and was friends with many great artists and writers including Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, Oscar Wilde, Paul Signac, Georges Seurat, to name a few. He gave the name of Neo-Impressionism to the artwork that Georges Seurat and the others were doing at the time and he promoted them with zeal.

Feneon; fingerprint ink on police print card done in the artist's prints; 2010; by Charles Sabba.

Henri Toulouse-Lautrec called him Buddha.

Felix Feneon's mug shot. Feneon had many brushes with the law, including an arrest for illegal possession of a firearm. One French biographer claims he bombed a restaurant. In an early example of my "Clandestine Bohemian", Feneon managed to work as a bureaucrat in the French War Ministry by day, and was a Bohemian and anarchist art critic by night. In 1892, Feneon was put on trial, in what is now dubbed the trial of the thirty, along with many other artists and intellectuals. Even though the charges were thrown out, he was dismissed from the Ministry of Defense.

A great book to read on this incredibly mysterious man, who was an art critic, writer, aesthete, anarchist, a bohemian, a raffish dandy and sometime bomber, is Felix Feneon: Aesthete and Anarchist In Fin De Seicle Paris by Joan Ungersma Halperin written in 1980.

Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris.

2012-02-08T11:26:00.001-08:00

We took this photo of Woody Allen and some of his crew while they took a break during filming of Midnight in Paris. Paris was energized in the summer of 2010 while Woody Allen was filming this movie. The most memorable time for me was when the film crew created smoke that wafted over the waters of the Seine at night. How lucky were the romantic lovers who embraced (or as we say in Italiano "chi si coccolava") along the river that evening!
Here is Owen Wilson with the lovely First Lady of France Carla Bruni who had a special role in the film.
Carla Bruni and Owen Wilson.

I am really digging this movie, but I actually dig anything Woody Allen produces.

Here is some of the music soundtrack on You Tube:

-Si Tu Vois Ma Mere by Sydney Bechet: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njFgl_dGz54&feature=related

-Ballad du Pari by Francois Parisi: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhiheDcF8SM

-Parlez Moi d'Amour composed by Dana Boule: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dg0ZV8PDnVY&feature=related

-and... Bistro Fadda-Stephane Wremble:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SOod4YnCGc&feature=related

Bohemia can only exist in Paris -Honore de Balzac

2012-02-08T11:00:00.000-08:00

Bohemia can only exist in Paris -Honore de Balzac

The charming and amazingly beautiful French actress and singer Marion Cotillard lounging in Gertrude Stein's den in Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris.

Adrien Brody as Salvador Dali'.

Owen Wilson (Gil Pender) and Marion Cotillard taking a midnight stroll on the Seine.

The artist Charles Sabba kicking it at the Ecole National Superior des Beaux-Arts, Paris.

EXPLORATIONS INTO BOHEMIA: The Greene House at 75 Greene St in Soho

2012-02-03T17:42:00.000-08:00

The Green House- successor to the Cave- Professional Bohemians or Amateurs; after all, who should decide?

The Door of 75 Greene Street.

I was just talking to Ryan Brown about the Green House recently and we both agree it would be a great thing if a party scene like that were still around. When you have a night with nothing to do, you buy some beer to share and pop in. You were always welcome to plot down on the couches, drink and talk about art.
Green House founder Jerry Faust inside the Green House.

I read some comments on the blogs that document the Green House art openings and a few of the neighbors were complaining about the artists pissing and defecating out the rear window (this is true, I did see them piss out of the window many times- must have stunk bad in the rear). They constantly called the police and fire department about the loud music and living conditions. Again, it is a shame that the art world has become so damn conservative. It is a disgrace that the artist enclave that was Soho is now an enclave of mostly stuck up wealthy unartistic masses. I mean, of course many of the old time artists who were smart enough to buy back in the day (and lucky enough to be able to afford the prices, which compared to today were very low after all) still live there, but their numbers have dwindled and so has their patience for young bohemian crowds. Funny thing is that they most likely resembled the Green House crowd in years past. How soon we forget when we move up the ladder.
Green House founders Shelby Voice and Myles Emery.

Again, cool party scene aside, our question here is was the atmosphere truly Bohemian. there was a lot of painting and creating going on at the Green House. It is not important to our evaluation whether or not the art was significant or good, that is subjective. The main point is that these people were there for art- that was their bond, their common denominator. Aside from some creating and painting, It certainly was a scene dominated more by the outward appearances of Bohemia, that being heavy drinking, drugs, loud music, unconventional living. It also adhered to the cabaret era of Bohemia, that being Bohemia as theater and spectacular event.
Inside the Green House.

The really sad thing that happened at this space was its mismanagement. Think about the amazing opportunity this artist tribe was given by the building's owner Sue Stein. Imagine what a group of artists could do with a cavernous rent free space on Green Street! I mean Shit Man! Pissing out the window, loud music and outrageous parties and drawing a whole lot of unecessary attention to yourselves from the uptight conservative, and might I add rich snooty tight ass neighbors, who in turn brought the heat down on the whole operation. This is where I would point to the benefit of Clandestine Bohemianism in the 21st century. Put on serious art shows, prohibit drugs and any other business that will bring down the police heat on you, and party in private. And for Pete's sake fix the plumbing so you can keep your back alley clean and sanitary! They should have took on more of the trappings of an ordinary respectable artist run gallery, while all the while refusing to take a number in life and accept the demands of social discipline. The art comes first, then the partying. The Green House people should have defended their space first and foremost and that would have demanded that they pleased those annoying neighbors just a little and they should have stayed out of the police and fire departments gun sights.

Princeton Professor Seigel explains the Barresian individual, which was a fore runner to the modern Clandestine Bohemian, as someone who possesses the following attributes: "...a highly polished personal surface, smooth and redolent of cultivated self-control which covers up and allows all the fantasies to thrive. Sensuality flourishes best in secret. Bohemianism in the soul, austerity on the outside. This double life, with its secrets and its freedom to be what no one suspects, is the highest form of pleasure. "

In case you are wondering what ever happened to Ryan Brown, he lived at the artist space The Sanctuary in Bushwick for a spell and then he ended up marrying Cecilia Jurado, the beautiful owner of the Y Gallery New York (at 165 Orchard Street http://www.ygallerynewyork.com/ ). Here they are when the three of us showed at the Brucennial 2010, which was curated by Vito Schnabel http://vitoschnabel.com/ . We will be showing in it again at the Brucennial 2012, so please look us up on opening night (24 Feb 2012).

Here is some more on the Cave and the Greene House:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nqb9zlvFbFY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuRoDmrMtmI

http://triggermagazine.com/2005/09/the-green-house.html

http://neithermorenorless.blogspot.com/2008/01/2005-gerry-faust-at-green-house-75.html

EXPLORATIONS INTO BOHEMIA: The Cave on St Mark's Place and The Green House at 75 Greene Street

2012-02-03T07:56:00.001-08:00

Jerry Faust and Jennifer at The Cave on St. Mark's Place.

I regret that I never stepped into The Cave which was located at 120 St Mark's Place, but me and my artist tribe had our own thing going on at our art studios near Union Square Park and we missed the Cave experience. The cave was an illegal squat artist commune in the East Village. The Cave was founded by Mike Matel, Demetrius and Maze. Some of its members were Myles Emory, Shelby Voice, Jerry Faust, Noah Ryder, Lisa Renko and Jim "Mosaic man" Power and super star dog Jesse Jane.

The building that housed the Cave has been recently torn down.

Jerry Faust at The Cave.
Filippo Fossati talking to art collectors in the Esso Gallery on 26th Street in Chelsea.

The first time I met Jerry Faust and his Greene House crew was at an opening at the Esso Gallery on 26th Street. This was my favorite New York gallery because the owners, Filippo Fossati andhis wife Jennifer Bacon were friendly, genuine people and they represented a lot of Italian artists I liked. Filippo was once friends with Alighiero e Boetti. Me and my artist friends often hovered around 26th St. Below the Esso Gallery on the first floor was the White Box before it moved and they gave out big bottles of Grolsch beer at their openings. Il Bottino was just down the street on 10th. I was standing in the gallery talking to Jennifer and Filippo and there was a large group of young artists hanging in the hallway outside occasionally entering the gallery, some with dreads, some wearing strange hats, all were drinking the Esso's beer. A very conservative looking older woman walked up to Jennifer and, in an attempt to rat the Green House group out, whispered "there are a bunch of people sitting around in the hallway and they are drinking." After the woman walked away, Jennifer laughed and turned to me stating: "the art world has become so conservative. In the 1980s we all looked and acted like them. Now you can't even drink at a gallery without someone telling on you."

This was funny, but at the same time it was sad. Sad that the art world has become so damn conservative. I hit it off real well with Jerry and his crew, including two British guys with dreads (don't remember their names). Jerry told me to visit them at their new artist collective at 75 Greene St in Soho. I remember clearly that the group appeared to be very cohesive. Real tight. They drank together, moved together, laughed together and departed together.

Three of my artist brothers in my old art studio near Union Square Park: Vincent Boschma, Stuart Stelzer and Ryan Brown

Ryan Brown in his suit and Michela in my art studio.

Ryan and that suit are important to this story. I went back to work in my studio and forgot about the Greene House. The next time It was brought to my attention was one day when I noticed the address "75 Greene Street" written onto Ryan's suit coat. Ryan made this suit out of canvas duct and wore it daily for 365 days straight (yes, he washed it daily). It was left untouched for months until at one party one drunk fellow slapped a handful of green paint on his sleeve, then Ryan became a walking collaboration. Ryan attended the VIP opening of the Whitney Biennial that year and it was there that he met Jerry and his artist tribe, although he couldn't remember who wrote the address on his coat. You see, my brother had a little too much to drink and crawled into one of the artist Andrea Zittel's pods she was exhibiting and passed out. He went out cold! Ryan woke up when he threw up in the pod and the Greene Street crew were looking in laughing hysterically while taking photos of him. Jerry and his gang were good enough to help Ryan out of the pod and away from that mess that would have arisen if he were to have gotten caught.

Needless to say, we made it a point to make it over to the Greene House for our first visit. We showed up with a couple of cases of Heinekin and had a grand old time. Jerry and some of his friends visited us at our artist studios as well.

EXPLORATIONS INTO BOHEMIA

2012-02-02T17:49:00.000-08:00

Bohemia is a realm of liberated fantasy. It is indeed more of an atmosphere than a place. It is a state without borders, a state of mind. In the "Explorations" posts that we will be creating from time to time, we will be searching for the atmosphere of Bohemia that has popped up from time to time in various parts of the world. To map out Bohemia from its origins in the 1830s France would take a long time and we will attempt to do so on this blog since time is our most abundant of assets. In Jerrold Seigal's outstanding book Bohemian Paris, he makes it clear that the Bohemia of Paris was both a place and an atmosphere: "for its 19th-century discoverers and explorers, Bohemia was an identifiable country with visible inhabitants, but one not marked on any map. To trace its frontiers was to cross constantly back and forth between reality and fantasy." This identifiable country of Bohemia had its pinnacle of statehood in Paris from the revolution of 1848 through the birth of Surrealism. Professor Seigel insists that there are universal and timeless elements in Bohemianism, but the main attribute is devotion to the arts. The Bohemians of 19th century Paris had to turn life itself into art: their everyday existence was a work of genius. A bohemian fuses art and life into a seamless unity.

Henri Muger categorized Bohemians of the 1850s into the real, "professional" Bohemians and the amateurs. The real Bohemians placed the highest priority on art and, contrary to the stereotype of laziness, did indeed work hard at their art. The amateurs did not create art, but spent all of their time and energy creating their image, that being the outward signs of the Bohemian, such as long, unkempt hair, unshaven faces, unconventional dress, the search for multiplied sensations such as free sex, drug use, heavy drinking to name a few. Both the professional and amateur Bohemians "appropriated marginal life-styles- a marginal existence based on the refusal or inability to take on a stable and limited social identity"- but for the real Bohemians, "Bohemia is a realm in which art is to be treated as a sacred priesthood, a divine mission for which its faithful stand ready to make every necessary sacrifice." -J. Seigel in parenthesis.

So, Bohemia as a geographic place cannot be located today, but the atmosphere- or rather, the perfumed scent of Queen Bohemia- has continued to seduce the creative masses and the atmosphere has been lived in from time to time in various parts of the globe after the disappearance of the Surrealists. In his essay What Is A Bohemian, written by Henry Mills Alden in 1859, he wrote that traces of Bohemia can be found and lived in in certain neighborhoods, but also in an artist's studio or a writer's room as well. This atmosphere comes onto certain individuals or groups of artists like the Christians believe the Holy Spirit fills a church. It is true that often enough the modern Bohemians are amateurs compared to our 19th century ancestors, or they identify themselves more by the outward signs of appearance than by their devotion to art. Hippies, Beatniks and Punks, for example, are not automatically honored with the title of Bohemian just because the live unconventional lives, have unordinary hairdos or dress styles, use drugs, drink heavy and get entangled in orgiastic sexual rituals. Art makes a Bohemian, not the outward appearance. Seigel also points out that Bohemians went through stages of development, we mention only a few examples of such here, such as the die-hard" live by art alone or starve" Bohemians of Henri Muger's 1840s, 1850s and 1860s, the Bohemia as both advertisement and spectacular event, that is, Bohemia as a form of publicity and Bohemia as theatre (the world of Henri Toulouse-Lautrecs cabarets), the weekend warriors who left the boredom of their repressed bourgeois lives to venture up to Montmartre for weekend escapes of adventure, danger and folly, and the Barresian individual who, forced to take on two lives out of necessity to survive, lived comfortably within conventional society all the while hiding their true Bohemian identities within their hearts and minds. We will write more on Maurice Barres, the once Bohemian writer who eventually became a right wing politico and was tried by Andre Breton and the Surrealists for his crimes; due to Barres controversial life, from now on we will refer to the Bohemian that Prof. Seigel calls a Barresian individual, which is a sort of undercover Bohemian, as a "Clandestine Bohemian." We feel that the survival of Bohemianism depends entirely on the adoption of the Clandestine Bohemian lifestyle, but more on that later.

Bohemian Soho and New York: Lost like Atlantis!

2012-02-02T16:50:00.000-08:00

Searching for Bohemia in NYC; oil on canvas; by Charles Sabba.

Bohemia is less a region of definite situation and boundaries than a state of mind..." -Arthur Bartlett Maurice (Maurice was born in Rahway, NJ and was a regular at the Vault at Paffs.

For those of you who are not aware, Soho was the closest thing to Bohemian Montmartre/Montparnasse that New York in the later half of the 2oth century ever had. Now it is disgusting. They are trying to make Manhattan into another boring cow chip throwing American bourgeois suburb. Most of the artists, due to the impossibly high rents, have moved so deep into Brooklyn it takes them up to thirty and forty minutes to reach Manhattan by subway. Boutiques and snooty shops are everywhere. You know the types. The kind of store that costs over $30 grand to rent but only has five or six very expensive hand bags displayed inside.

Bohemia is not just a physical place or an atmosphere, she is a queen. Bohemia is like a Greek goddess. She is like a patron saint of a secular religion that worships art, beauty, and the power of the individual imagination. ALL POWER TO THE IMAGINATION! Imagination is the true faith of all artists, writers, poets, and art world habitues. When you walk down Greene Street, PrinceStreet, or any where else in this neighborhood, you can still smell the goddess Bohemia's fine French perfume, which is the only refined luxury of France that she brought over from the Latin Quarter/Montmartre/Montparnasse era. She acquired that sexy scent before Bohemia the place was transported as an atmosphere across the pond to New York and, eventually the Soho artist enclave. Now her sweet smell is faint in these streets but that scent is still seductive and enticing. It bewitches young artists and poets, but Bohemia the numinous goddess is in the wind and the scent of that sexy seductress gently wafts on. (This was an excerpt from Charlie Sabba's book Hard-Boiled Bohemianism: The Memoirs of a Clandestine Bohemian Operative Who, In Search For Experience, Went Deep Under Cover in the Bourgeois Philistine Society's Law Enforcement Sector.

What is a Bohemian? Written by Henry Mills Alden in 1859

2012-02-02T08:07:00.000-08:00

What is a Bohemian?

By Henry Mills Alden

Published in Harper's New Monthly Magazine; Volume 19, issues 109- 114, page 705 in 1859.

What is a Bohemian? It is a name for a gipsy. But what is the Bohemia of Paris? It is the Bohemia of London or New York. That is to say, it is the name of the guild of literary and artistic vagabonds. Privat D'Anglemont, who lately died in a Paris hospital, is gravely announced as the chief of literary Bohemia since the death of Gerard de Nerval.

Bohemia is the realm of vagabondage. It is the modern sphere of the spirit that formerly coursed the world for adventure — but now prefers to explore the universe in a microcosm, and finds a metropolis the best of all. Men of an indomitable irregularity and indolence, who live by their wits and for self indulgence, are Bohemians. They are a genial, generous fraternity, in whom you may securely look for the kindly, but not so surely for the stern and heroic, virtues. They are the great company of ''good fellows," who have a secret contempt for the processes by which money is acquired, but a profound enjoyment of the pleasures it purchases. In the history of literature there are famous names which illustrate the Bohemian spirit. But it was not until literature became a profession that Bohemians were a guild. Sir Richard Steele was as perfect a specimen as could be produced of the literary Bohemian. Oliver Goldsmith was one of the fair fraternity. But the great Samuel Johnson, the keen Alexander Pope, the cold Joseph Addison, were not. They were literary men — they lived by literature — but they had not the divine contempt of tomorrow which marks the Bohemian.

It is not indispensably necessary that a Bohemian should be arrested for debt, nor be often tipsy, as that gallant knight, Sir Richard Steele, was sometimes known to be. Yet it may be safely averred that a Bohemian, as such, is not a member of the Temperance Society, and that Bohemia at large has rarely a balance at its banker's. It dislikes bills and bores.

Bohemia is a roving kingdom — a realm in the air, like Arthur's England. Wherever a true Bohemian goes Bohemia goes with him. It is a universal and not a local church, and perpetually sends its emissaries in partibus infdelium. It sometimes happens that, as a gipsy's child turns out to be a prince's child, who naturally dwells in a palace, so the Bohemian is found in fine houses and high society. Yet, like a knight of Arthur, his heart is still loyal to the Round Table, and through the gilded bars of the ceremonies which fence him in he catches glimpses of the free fields of Bohemia. He longs to escape. His heart yearns to tread the turf, moist with heaven's dew of laziness and dreams. Seeing, he sings: and all Bohemia hails and re-echoes the song.

Bohemia is a fairy land upon the hard earth. It is Arcadia in New York or London, in Paris or Rome. Hereabouts you may find it in painters' studios, and in the rooms of authors. Often enough its denizens are clad loosely — seedily, in the vulgate — and they are shaggy as to the head, with abounding hair. Whatever is not "respectable" they are. Respectability is the converse of the Bohemian idea. There are plenty of men among them worthy of respect — but none who are technically respectable. If they are the lees of society, as has been injuriously urged, then they are the richness which settles at the bottom of the cup. Respectability is the pale, thin, emasculated liquor that floats upon the surface and is easily seen through. Bohemia is the nimble essence, the fat substantiality, which "ascends me into the brain," and begets there glorious phantasies.

It is with the Bohemians as with the races. Men die, but man survives. So the Bohemian passes, but Bohemia is immortal. The line of succession is not hereditary. One Bohemian dies — no son of his succeeding — but the fair fraternity is forever enriched by the accession of the lazy, the genial, the careless, and witty. The citizens are removed by various fates. Sometimes it is death. Sometimes a sudden fortune, falling from some unexpected uncle, sweeps them away into regular habits of life. Sometimes matrimony with a golden jointure chains them to the dull routine of society. Sometimes public appointments force them into the decorum of the citizen. But though they fall, the ranks are full. "Close up!" is the word that rings along the line.

Epicurus might be the tutelary genius of Bohemia. But if he be, what shall we do with Charles Lamb? Can that light be spared from its shining history? No: and always no. And since he is dear in all Bohemian hearts forever, it follows that the finest forms of heroism are not inconsonant with the true spirit, though they be rare, and that the indolence is of the temperament, and not of the heart or conscience.

Besides, why shall there not be degrees, as in all hierarchies, even the angelic? If Alfred de Musset and Gerard de Nerval and Privat d'Anglemont — if Couture and Leopold Robert and Gavarni — if Steele and Goldsmith, and Fielding and Thackeray are Bohemians, docs it follow that Lamb was not, because he was so different a man? Nay, does it follow that Shakespeare was not, because he was solitary in literature? No, no; Bohemia has Shakespeare without the sheep-stealing. It has Ben Jonson, with his laureate canary. It has old Chaucer, surely, and Marlowe. Suckling, Herrick, and Gay are Bohemians all. Not Milton, indeed, nor Spenser, nor Sidney, nor Donne: nor Bunyan, nor Defoe. But by all sympathy Charles Lamb was a Bohemian.

How many a youth on the verge of college and of manhood looks wistfully into Bohemia! How alluring it hangs before him! How it sings to him, like a soft landscape of Claude! It is all festival to his eye, all dancing and singing; all reclining by purling brooks and telling tales and weaving rhymes. It seems all listening to the far-off sound of praise — for the ocean of the world, of the great public, laves its limits, and the hum of fame, like the music of the sea, seems to him the only sound the soft Bohemians hear.

O wistful youth, to whom Bohemia is that Lotus land "wherein it seemed always afternoon," read Goldsmith's Life, or Lamb's, and ask yourself "Can I be equally heroic, equally pure?" If sincerely you believe you can, then you may say sincerely,'' I, too, am a Bohemian."

Homage to Apollinaire

2012-01-27T07:03:00.000-08:00

Video: Blaise Cendrars- Homage to Apollinaire:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGmRniQ5fcs

Apollinaire by Vlaminck, 1903.

The Muse Inspiring the Poet: Marie Laurencin and Guillaume Apollinaire

Apollinaire As A Teapot by Pablo Picasso,1905.

Apollinaire by Charles Grooms, oil on wood and cardboard, 1963.

Apollinaire by Giorgio DeChirico.

Video: Leo Ferre: Guillaume Apollinaire, Le Pont Mirabeau:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yntXWr1rq9w&feature=fvst

Apollinaire's voice recorded:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCpg6SMzXC4

Selections from Alcools:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvoQc2pnQZM

Motto For Bohemia: Sans sou et sans souci

2012-01-19T05:45:00.001-08:00

This "Motto of the King of Bohemia" was printed in the New-York Saturday Press on 17 September 1859: Sans sou et sans souci

(without silver and without a care).

The Cabaret Zut on Rue ravignan

2012-01-19T03:36:00.000-08:00

Frederic "Frede" Gerard, the owner of Zut, with a young girl.
Frede with guitar.
Frede.
The Zut was a tavern on the Rue Ravignan (in a square now named after Emile Goudeau, a writer who started up the literary cafe and theater called the Hydropathes, and later, the Chat Noir) where all the anarchists of the Butte came to drink (and the Zut was the fGas lamps lit the murky space, which was run by a little man with a cap and long beard, wearing brown velvet pants, clogs on his feet, and a bright red flannel belt. His name was frederic Gerard, Frede for short. His bar was open to all the poor and rejected citizens of the city. Though he didn't know a single note of music, the tavern's keeper played the guitar, sometimes the cello. He sang Parisian melodies, often accompanied by other performers who came to join him. Outside, the street was full of prostitutes, petty thieves, deserters, rival gangs with their knives out, looking for a fight, fraudsters, stamp forgers: the usual flora fauna of the neighborhood. The Zut's sign announced the tone: 'Beer'. It was the only alcohol available on the premises; there were no wines or liqueurs. Frede poured the foam directly from the pitcher into the glasses placed on the barrels that served as tables. Sometimes he would cook ham and eggs. When shots were heard outside, punctuating the young hotheads' fun, he reassured his immigrant friends that if the police came, he would hide them. They were all afraid of being forced to leave the country. But Frede the bigmouth, Frede the anarchist, was there to watch out for them.

Frede later was hired by none other then Aristide Bruant to manage the infamous artist/poet haunch, the Cabaret Lapin Agile. After a short while as manager, Frede became a partner and eventually became the sole proprietor of the Lapin Agile, which is now legendary in both art history and the history of la Boheme.

This is a brief exerpt from Dan Franck's Bohemian Paris: Picasso, Modigliani, Matisse and the Birth of Modern Art, which is an outstanding history of Bohemia and is a must read for serious scholars of the history of Bohemia and art history. The book, which we have reprinted here with permission from King Ubu Roi, can be purchased here:

http://www.amazon.com/Bohemian-Paris-Picasso-Modigliani-Matisse/dp/0802139973

Montmartre et ses artistes according to Francis Carco

2012-01-18T15:17:00.000-08:00

Montmartre et ses artistes according to Francis Carco:

The atmosphere of Bohemia bred illusions more dangerous than the mere hope that youth and innocence were equivalent to talent . Those who yearned to live the legend of artistic life were prey to desires that slackened reality's hold on their minds. Francis Carco told of meeting people in Bohemian haunts who said they still knew Verlaine and the Symbolist poet Jean Moreas, long after both were dead. "On certain rainy days the boundary between the real and the possible, the present and the past, is such that one no longer knows which of the two prevails, or deserves our attachment." Such ambiguous states of mind were known to all poets, who often - in poverty, idleness, and drink - exploited the dizzying visions that came from upsetting the conditions of normal perception. But true artists knew that reality had its own limits, which were not those of the imagination; the Bohemian danger was to forget this distinction. That the members of his own generation seemed particularly susceptible to such confusions was a circumstance Carco attributed in part to the weight of the nineteenth-century literary tradition that culminated in the decadents. Nothing could be taken at face value any more, life became a continual testing of how far one could go on pure imagination. "Everything became a subject for experiment. We did not live, we imagined ourselves to be living; we chose our form of life and led it against nature. That was what it was to be an artist."

Vive la Sainte Boheme!

Picasso at Lapin Agile by Steve Martin -Movie

2012-01-18T14:34:00.000-08:00

Picasso at Lapin Agile by Steve Martin.

Part I:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwaq4oF5sMc

Part II:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spWogjWK0cE&feature=plcp&context=C34048beUDOEgsToPDskJv1pp-Y_LBQzUdSQPBh-SX

Part III:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcI7Ep5TEwk&feature=plcp&context=C3ac60cdUDOEgsToPDskKRYAWpHm_vJX7IqGDVaHCd

Max Jacob I

2012-01-18T07:33:00.000-08:00

Max with Pablo Picasso (right) and friends.

The following notes on Max Jacob's life are taken from Dan Franck's "Bohemian Paris" which is a must read for serious scholars of Bohemia's history. The book, from which we have reprinted a few small excerpts here with permission from King Ubu Roi, can be purchased here:

http://www.amazon.com/Bohemian-Paris-Picasso-Modigliani-Matisse/dp/0802139973

To anyone who asked about his childhood, he would say that a band of gypsies had kidnapped him when he was three years old; that his bones were removed and he was cut up into pieces before being discovered several years later in the courtyard of Ecole Normale Superiure, one of France's finest schools.

There was no need to believe a word he said; the man was a poet. Max was also a painter, and always had been.

One fine day, with no luggage, no coat, just a few francs pinched from his mother's wallet, he came to Paris, where he quickly discovered that a paintbrush didn't bring much more in the way of revenue than a pen. He became in turn piano teacher, tutor, office employee, art critic, street sweeper, apprentice carpenter. lawyer's clerk, seretary, sales representative and childminder.

After viewing some sixty-four paintings of his dear friend Picasso at Vollard's gallery, Max said: "He did imitate the older artists (like Renoir, Degas, Delacroix, and Rubens), but his imitations were caught up in such a whirlwind of genius that one felt only, in this exhibition of a great number of canvases, the explosive force of an entirely new and original personality."

Max met Pablo in the apartment he shared with Manyac on Boulevard de Clichy. A dozen Spanish friends cooked beans as Picasso showed Max canvas after canvas. They ate, drank, and sang songsuntil late into the night, the guitars played melodies from Beethoven's symphonies.

After hearing Max recite his poems, Picasso cried with emotion and declared that Max was the only true French poet of his time. In return for the compliment, Max gave him some of his most precious possessions: a Durer wood engraving, authentic images of Epinal, and all his daumier lithographs.

Picasso drew him into his band of Spaniards. They would laugh, sing, and dance far into the night.

Max Jacob II

2012-01-18T07:32:00.000-08:00

In 1902, when Picasso could not sell a painting and was suffering from extreme poverty and hunger, max shared his meager earnings with him. Max, who was only five years older than Pablo, played the role of older brother. Max referred to Pablo as "Litle One".

The two friends ended up living together in a room that Max rented on the Boulevard Voltaire. The artists' life was hard. One night, as they were gazing out of the window, the same thought came to both of them. Picasso was the first to turn away. He took the poet's arm and said, "we can't let ourselves have ideas like that."

Some days, using the pseudonym maxime Febur, Max would visit galleries where he would pass himself off as a rich collector. He would ask, "do you have any works by Picasso?" Most of the time, the answer was no. They hadn't heard of him. Max pretended to be stupefied. "How can that be? He is a genius! What a mistake for a gallery like yours not to exhibit an artist of such stature!"

For Max Jacob, Picasso was the most important person in his entire existence. The poet celebrated the painter. The painter drew the poet. After baudelaire and Delacroix, Zola and Cezanne, they led the waltz of pen and paint in their own time. Soon, other poets and painters would join them, notably Leger and Cendrars. Picasso himself would attract the attention of Salmon and Apollinaire, and then Cocteau, Eluard, Breton, Reverdy, Rene Char... But it was Max Jacob who first introduced him to Ronsard, Verlaine, Vigny, Baudelaire, Rimbaud and Mallarme, opening up the vast horizon of poetry, which would strike a sensitive chord in him all of his life. Max Jacob was first among the group of friends and followers of Picasso that succeeded his band of Spaniards; it was also Max Jacob that helped introduce him into fashionable circles and who arranged for him to meet the dress designers and artistic patrons, Paul Poiret and Jaques Doucet.

Max jacob Part III

2012-01-18T07:29:00.000-08:00

At The Circus by Max Jacob.

.
Max and Pablo.
Rue Ravignan; Max jacob.

Max Jacob Part IV

2012-01-18T07:24:00.000-08:00

Le Rue Bolivar le Matin; gouache et papier beige; 24.5 x 34 cm; by Max Jacob.
Portrait of Max Jacob; pencil on paper; 36.5 x 26.7 cm; by Juan Gris.

Max Jacob Part V

2012-01-18T07:21:00.000-08:00

Artists Portraits of Max Jacobs and Video of Max

2012-01-18T06:50:00.000-08:00

Portrait of Max Jacob; 1916; oil on canvas by Modigliani; 73 x 60 cm.
Max Jacob by Picasso.
Max Jacob and Sabba With Ether Pipe in his Monmartre Abode; oil on canvas; by Sabba
Max Jacob by Jean Cocteau.
Max Jacob; oil on linen by Amedeo Modigliani.

Video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=G528p_CI9u4

Le Fee Verte: Absinthe- L'Herb Sante

2012-01-18T06:08:00.000-08:00

Photo taken in Sabba's at studio.
The Absinthe Drinkers; 1876; oil on linen; Edgar Degas; Musee d'Orsay, Paris, France.
Detail of Fe Verte
La Fee Verte; oil on canvas.
The Absinthe Drinkers; 1859; oil on linen; Edouard Manet; Ny Carlsberg lypotek, Copenhagen, Denmark.

Documentary on Picasso

2012-01-17T08:28:00.000-08:00

The Absinthe Drinker; 1901; oil on cardboard; 65.5 x 51 cm. Pablo Picasso.

Documentary on Picasso (English).

Part I:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCTg41oalhU&feature=plcp&context=C34a57cbUDOEgsToPDskLOy-xEMmDEb_9tTZbO872I

Part II:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHeGPL6enK8&feature=plcp&context=C3666e7aUDOEgsToPDskKHZNOmZ2aU_XyqJjXtvusr

Part III:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHVtHYI9WMo&feature=plcp&context=C30c728bUDOEgsToPDskKYlhqmPVittRL990eFB8gM

Part IV:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFGwKxyIIX8&feature=plcp&context=C32fd5dfUDOEgsToPDskLf6kT1XLYLbaG8EujGXgfN

Part V:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwE794Ml5mQ&feature=plcp&context=C3194affUDOEgsToPDskIox4Pzz9MhTHrUAbiXXtHA

Part VI:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AWZGeuv3EY&feature=plcp&context=C335a271UDOEgsToPDskJgg9C4aPTwdpgUX8QSncpn

Part VII:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFzkEQEhTYw&feature=plcp&context=C3b29f4eUDOEgsToPDskJ-qCnGfvIQyRFXHNbqZmza

Part VIII:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAb9g3-JE2c&feature=plcp&context=C3fc221bUDOEgsToPDskLTiSHDN11VdAPyswajvATs

Documentario: Picasso sulle Impronte del Mito

2012-01-17T08:14:00.000-08:00

The lovers Pablo Picasso and Fernande Olivier.

Picasso sulle Impronte del Mito (in Italiano):

Part I:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3whpHt2UOw&feature=plcp&context=C3617ebeUDOEgsToPDskL9YRn5DejKjdxzWrVkPSMr

Part II:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xp6cVmi1XSU&feature=plcp&context=C388bab8UDOEgsToPDskLY7G8lrEd6Q6JMZVw-QUWx

Part III:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wv9p5qq_Su0&feature=plcp&context=C3b8645bUDOEgsToPDskKv-XEyhG8btO6hDzw-xSkB

Part IV:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2FHDf2JLwQ&feature=plcp&context=C368edcbUDOEgsToPDskKU1b6-O-0BFoEoDQ34WFUx

Part V:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Va5Sphvj5y4&feature=plcp&context=C3c68569UDOEgsToPDskI-rnWiBJGHv_ca5s7ZU8eA

Part VI:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ztQYkwMtAU&feature=plcp&context=C35d7d05UDOEgsToPDskIAeUCLVoSKZOf1syiOis8d

Part VII:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4inAtNpH7AI&feature=plcp&context=C374cdcaUDOEgsToPDskLPL8Ltxtvbxxttyzln6yS5

Suzanne Valadon: The Artist

2012-01-17T07:38:00.000-08:00

The Bohemian Composer Erik Satie (Suzanne's ex-lover).

The following brief history of Suzanne Valadon's life is an exerpt from Dan Franck's Bohemian Paris: Picasso, Modigliani, Matisse and the Birth of Modern Art, which is an outstanding history of Bohemia and is a must read for serious scholars of Bohemia's history. The book, which we have reprinted here with permission from King Ubu Roi, can be purchased here:

http://www.amazon.com/Bohemian-Paris-Picasso-Modigliani-Matisse/dp/0802139973

Portrait of her son Maurice Utrillo.

Suzanne Valadon was a pretty plump-cheeked girl who had extraordinarily luminous blue eyes which attracted men like flies. She was one of the women who was not a dancer to have left her stamp on Monmartre's history. She was free both in thought and act, which could shock the conventional spirits of the times.

A country girl, she was the daughter of a cleaning woman, whose father had disappeared shortly after she was born. She came to Paris young, already knowing how to lie: she claimed to be even younger than she was, from a rich family, and gave a false first name- Suzanne only came later. At the time, she was officially known as Marie-Clementine, and to the artists who used her as a model, Maria.
She had hundreds of odd jobs before becoming an acrobat with the Fernando Circus. After a bad fall, she had to change professions, becoming an artists' model. She posed freely and whenever it suited her, for Puvis de Chavannes, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, Renoir, and Edgar Degas. It was Degas who encouraged her to paint.

She was the mistress of nearly all of her mentors, and of Erik Satie. The musician sent her three hundred letters within the space of six months. He called her 'my little Biqui', which didn't move the beautiful Suzanne in the slightest. Their romance was short-lived and dramatic: the lady did not lack temperment.
Femme Nue a la Draperie; 1919; oil on canvas.

She had one son, Maurice Utrillo, about whose father we know little- in fact, almost nothing. Whatever some have said, Maurice was almost certainly not the son of the Catalan painter and art critic Miguel Utrillo, a great friend of Picasso's during his first years in Montmartre. Most of Utrillo's friends thought, probably rightly, that Miguel was just a generous lover who was happy to take on the role of father. There is also nothing to confirm Francis Carco's affirmation that the artist's father was a certain Boissy, a poor and alcoholic painter.
Photographed with her husband Andre Utter and Maurice Utrillo.

For several years, Suzanne Valadon led the free life of a single mother. She then married a well-to-do friend of Erik Satie, a legal representative for a legal firm, who sent Maurice to Saint Anne's hospital for the mentally ill. This husband was eventually replaced by Andre Utter, one of her son's best friends. Utter worked from time to time as an electrician, and more often as a painter. When she took him away from his canvases (so he could devote himself to hers), Suzanne Valadon was nearly forty-five. Utter was twenty years younger then her, and three years younger then Maurice. The step-father was indeed the youngest of the trio- which was in fact a quartet since Valadon's mother also lived with them.

Suzanne Valdon: Posing for Henri Toulouse-Lautrec

2012-01-17T07:18:00.001-08:00

Poudre de Riz; 1887.

The Landress; 1889.

The Hangover.

Suzanne Valadon: posing for Edgar Degas

2012-01-17T06:58:00.000-08:00

The Bather; 1885-1886; oil on linen; 60 x 83; Museo de Orsay, Paris, France.
La Tina; 1886; pastel on paper; 70 x 70 cm; Hill-Stead Museum, Farmington, Ct, USA
Suzanne Valadon (study for after the bath); 1896; 16 x 12 cm; taken by Degas; Getty Museum, Malibu, Calif., USA
After the Bath; 1898; oil on linen; 89 x 116 cm; Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pa., USA

Suzanne Valadon: Photos of Suzanne Valadon

2012-01-17T05:14:00.003-08:00

Posing for photo.
With Maurice Utrillo.
At her easel painting.
With Maurice Utrillo when he was a child.

Suzanne Valadon: Posing for Pierre-Auguste Renoir

2012-01-17T05:14:00.001-08:00

Study for the Bathers; 1884-1885; Chalk over graphite on paper; Institute of Art, Chicago, USA

Dance at Bougival (Suzanne Valadon and Paul Lhote; 1882-1883; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, USA.

The Bathers; 1884-1887; oil on linen; Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Suzanne Valadon: poses for de Chavanne, Modigliani, Steinlen and Utrillo

2012-01-17T05:13:00.000-08:00

Suzanne Valadon; 1880; by Pierre Puvis de Chavanne.
Amedeo Modigliani
Theopile-Alexandre Steinlen.

Portrait of his Mother; Maurice Utrillo.

Jonathan Meades Documentary: In Search of Bohemia

2012-01-16T09:17:00.000-08:00

Part I:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUH62mXuT6I

Part II:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoEk9vPey8g

Part III:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywVoP82G8Uw

Charles Aznavour

2012-01-16T08:46:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_ue2k-XJ_4&feature=player_embedded#!

French lyrics:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0KXAGzuQ_E

La Bohemia in Italiano:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvyrZ4Sys3c

En Espanol:

Natascha Bessez:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFZLJe8IQRI

Toulouse Lautrec Doc

2012-01-15T09:48:00.000-08:00

The Drinker; approximately 1887/1888; blue and black pastel and black tint on paper; 49,3 x 63,2. Museum Toulouse Lautrec. Suzanne Valadon, a the great artist and artist model of Monmartre and the mother of Maurice Utrillo, posed for this drawing.

Part 1:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibdgZZz6boE&feature=related

part 2:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcnawBSO5Ew&feature=related

3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hV_McYhjB7Y&feature=related

4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=st9fX3mOS30&feature=related

Crouching woman with red hair; 1897; oil on cardboard; 47 x 60 cm; San Diego Museum of Art.

Pablo Picasso: Gli anni giovanili e la rivoluzione cubista

2012-01-14T09:23:00.001-08:00

Yo Picasso; 1901; oil on linen; 73.5 x 60.5 cm.

In Italiano:

http://www.raiscuola.rai.it/video/7728/pablo-picasso-gli-anni-giovanili-e-la-rivoluzione-cubista/default.aspx

Modigliani documentario

2012-01-12T07:13:00.000-08:00

http://www.arte.rai.it/articoli/amedeo-modigliani/1501/default.aspx

Una storia di amore e morte nella Parigi di inizio Novecento. Si chiamava Amedeo Modigliani, la sua vita era sempre in bilico tra fame e poverta', funesta daa dolore e dalle malattie. Oggi i suoi quadri sono nei piu' importanti del mondo. Stranezze della vita degli artisti, ma forze solo stranezze della vita. Un racconto affidato ad una delle migliore scrittrici italiane Simone Vinci.

Cabaret in Berlin

2012-01-12T07:06:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tWI39AXp6E&feature=plcp&context=C305fc89UDOEgsToPDskIATXIiB-ATV-OOLx_ZYV_0

http://www.europesochic.com/tag/berlin/

Video: Modigliani: Ave Maria

2012-01-12T06:49:00.000-08:00

Photo of the lovely Jeaune Hebertuane.

Video- Modigliani: Ave Maria

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gShcC3MoDRg

Jeaune Hebertuane: The Love of Modi's life.
Portrait of Jeaune by Modi.

Modigliani: I Colori Dell'Amore

2012-01-12T06:26:00.000-08:00

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJLHaW20q50&feature=plcp&context=C38aa70aUDOEgsToPDskIYzRoOEFXKCPqSl3KsVAEM

Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAB0cQMldi8&feature=plcp&context=C3319c38UDOEgsToPDskL4zGXbbBHQ6LSqN5EMt-X-

3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s71Q9l4kPi4&feature=plcp&context=C3814dc9UDOEgsToPDskIAlc4-Yk5Rid9NDx4vK9v0

4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCgizxdO8GM&feature=plcp&context=C3dcd125UDOEgsToPDskJJRmjgDWs8mCZBJQBc-VsF

5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qyz4uRfjmjk&feature=plcp&context=C38ae722UDOEgsToPDskJ1g-7WRl4wZU5ruCYPZpFg

6: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXjBQl5cwFw&feature=plcp&context=C3375c3aUDOEgsToPDskKw3ozXvxMdfdeGjkkdYYQD

Part 7: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au6--l4Dac0&feature=plcp&context=C3e329a2UDOEgsToPDskIA6GSXHVL6aa6mVtBbNBNs

8: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUma-37ZSMg&feature=plcp&context=C3f6c3b6UDOEgsToPDskJGeV5IYxNszXrQLAk_S6ej

9: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nkBx6LHzqU&feature=plcp&context=C3d49e83UDOEgsToPDskIgb4OnHoxZf-LcAP8q-iGP

10: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiKtOrmtyxY&feature=plcp&context=C300373eUDOEgsToPDskJ8Qs9LB8zRy4nSbh3mLtyT

11: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiKtOrmtyxY&feature=plcp&context=C300373eUDOEgsToPDskJ8Qs9LB8zRy4nSbh3mLtyT

12: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08BIw_FYlZA&feature=plcp&context=C3d5f6f3UDOEgsToPDskKF5gEbsmfDnaqoQYIKu5ZI

Amedeo Modigliani e gli artisti di Parigi

2012-01-12T06:00:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JecQpTXq18Y&feature=related

Nude; 1900. Oil on linen. Collection of Gianni Mattioli. Milán, Italia.

Josephine Baker

2010-05-11T08:03:00.000-07:00

Josephine Baker; oil on canvas; by C. Sabba

Modi- A Bohemian Prince

2009-11-18T17:05:00.000-08:00

"Cara Ialia: Modi's Last Words"; oil on canvas; 2009; Sabba.

DIONISIAIKU
DIONISIAIKU

Modigliani
E Jeanne Hebuterne

Un amor Maudit.

Oscar Ghilia: A Self Portrait.

When Amedeo Modigliani was a young artist still in Italia and prior to his transfer to Montmartre, he wrote these inspirational words to his artist friend Oscar Ghiglia: "you were made for a life of happiness and intensity. People like us have different rights, different values than do normal, ordinary people because we have different needs which put us above their moral standards. Your duty is never to waste yourself in sacrifice. Your real duty is to save your dream. Beauty herself makes painful demands; but those never the less bring forth the most supreme efforts of the soul. Every obstacle we overcome means an increase in will-power and provides the vital and progressive renewal of our inspiration. Hold sacred everything that will stimulate and excite your intellect. Try to provoke to freshen all these stimulating forces which can alone push your intelligence to its maximum creative power. This is what we have to fight for. Can we possibly achieve such goals hemmed in by narrow moral values? Always speak out and keep forging ahead. The man that cannot find new ambitions and even anew person within himself, who is always destined to wrestle with what has remained rotten and decadent in his own personality, is not a man. He is a bourggeois, a grocer, what you will. Get use to putting your own aesthetic needs before your obligations to your fellow men."

Welcome to Young Bohemia Blog

2009-11-18T15:32:00.000-08:00

In the parlance of Lelio (George Sand's The Last Aldini): Let us despise the pride of the great, laugh at their follies, spend our wealth gaily when we have it, and endure poverty without complaint should it come. Above all let us preserve our liberty, enjoy life, and vive la Boheme!"