Art, Medicine, and Femininity

Art, Medicine, and Femininity

EnglishEbook
Halliwell, Hannah
McGill-Queen's University Press
EAN: 9780228019916
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&quote;Paris is the centre of the cult,&quote; wrote Robert Hichens in Felix, his 1902 novel on the rising number of morphine addictions in Europe. In Paris, artists depicted the morphine addict numerous times, yet they disregarded the reality of France's addiction problem: male medical professionals made up the highest proportion of people who used morphine habitually. In oil paintings, caricatures, and lithographs, artists such as Pablo Picasso, Eugene Grasset, and Theophile Steinlen almost always depicted the morphine addict as a deviant female figure.Artists sensationalized addiction to elicit shock and stand out in the crowded Parisian art market. Their artworks show influences from contemporary medical texts on addiction and artistic depictions of sex workers, lesbians, and other women deemed socially deviant. These images proliferated in French society, creating false narratives about who was or could become addicted to drugs and setting a precedent for the visualization of drug addiction. Hannah Halliwell links the feminization of addiction to broader anxieties in late nineteenth-century France - the defeat by Prussia in 1871, concerns about social decadence, a declining population, and a rising feminist movement.Art, Medicine, and Femininity presents a new understanding of the history of addiction and substance use and its intersection with art and gender.
EAN 9780228019916
ISBN 0228019915
Binding Ebook
Publisher McGill-Queen's University Press
Publication date December 15, 2023
Language English
Country Canada
Authors Halliwell, Hannah
Series Intoxicating Histories