Season 2, Episode 5
Eugène Grasset, Morphinomaniac (1897) 
Photographs of a ‘hysterical’ woman at the Salpetrière from Nouvelle Iconographie de la Salpêtrière (c. 1888-1918), image courtesy of the Wellcome Collection 
Eugène Grasset, Inquiétude (1897) 
Aubrey Beardsley, cover illustrations for The Yellow Book, An Illustrated Quarterly (1894), image courtesy of the British Library 
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Divan Japonais poster (1892-93) , image courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art 
Bernini, detail from Rape of Proserpina (1621-22) 
Edvard Munch, Vampire II (Vampyr II) (1895) 
Walter Sickert, Reclining Nude (Le lit de cuivre) (c. 1906), image courtesy of Royal Albert Memorial Museum 
Examples of Parisian wax work: Death of Marat at the Musée Grévin (photograph taken 1959) 
Albert Joseph Pénot, La Femme Chauve-Souris (‘The Bat-Woman’) (c. 1890) 
Luis Ricardo Falero, Vision of Faust (1878) 
Eugène Grasset, Vitrioleuse (The Acid Thrower) (1894), image courtesy of Minneapolis Institute of Art 
Katsushika Hokusai, The Waterfall Where Yoshitsune Washed His Horse at Yoshino in Yamato Province (c. 1832) 
Jules Cheret, Vin Mariani (c. 1896-1900) 
Jean Bernard Restout, Morpheus (Sleep) (c. 1771) 
Pablo Picasso, Waiting (Margot) (1901) 
Pablo Picasso, Morphinomanes (1900) 
Paul-Albert Besnard, Morphine Addicts (Morphinomanes) (1887), image courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
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Emma and Christy use Eugène Grasset’s lithograph Morphinomaniac (1897) as a starting point to talk about artistic depictions of morphine and historical opioid addiction, as well as decadence and degeneration in fin-de-siècle Parisian society. In this episode, we cover vampires, hypodermic syringes, Orientalism and Japonisme, ‘dangerous’ women, masturbation, pleasure, and sex work, true crime waxworks, and the gendered consumption of women, goods, and drugs.
MEDIA DISCUSSED
Eugène Grasset, Morphinomaniac (1897)
Photographs of a ‘hysterical’ woman yawning at the Salpetrière from Nouvelle Iconographie de la Salpêtrière (c. 1888-1918)
Eugène Grasset, Inquiétude (1897)
Aubrey Beardsley, cover illustrations for The Yellow Book, An Illustrated Quarterly (1894)
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Divan Japonais poster (1892-93)
Bernini, detail from Rape of Proserpina (1621-22)
Edvard Munch, Vampire II (Vampyr II) (1895)
Walter Sickert, Reclining Nude (Le lit de cuivre) (c. 1906)
Examples of Parisian wax work: Death of Marat at the Musée Grévin (photograph taken 1959)
Albert Joseph Pénot, La Femme Chauve-Souris (‘The Bat-Woman’) (c. 1890)
Luis Ricardo Falero, Vision of Faust (1878)
Eugène Grasset, Vitrioleuse (The Acid Thrower) (1894)
Katsushika Hokusai, The Waterfall Where Yoshitsune Washed His Horse at Yoshino in Yamato Province (c. 1832)
Jules Cheret, Vin Mariani (c. 1896-1900)
Jean Bernard Restout, Morpheus (Sleep) (c. 1771)
Pablo Picasso, Waiting (Margot) (1901)
Pablo Picasso, Morphinomanes (1900)
Paul-Albert Besnard, Morphine Addicts (Morphinomanes) (1887)
REFERENCES
The ARTnews piece that started it all: Robin Cembalest, ‘The Evil-Looking Women Drug Addicts of French Belle Epoque Art’, ARTnews (20 March 2014)
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper (1892)
Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Grey (1891)
Joris-Karl Huysmans, À Rebours (Against Nature) (1884)
Hannah Hallliwell, Art, Medicine, and Femininity: Visualising the Morphine Addict in Paris, 1870-1914 (Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, forthcoming January 2024)
Hannah Halliwell, ‘In Art and Wax: The Morphine Addict in France at the Turn of the Twentieth Century’, The Social History of Alcohol and Drugs: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 37.1 (Spring 2023), 35-71
Abigail Susik, ‘Consuming and Consumed: Women as Habituée in Eugène Grasset’s Morphinomaniac’, in Decadence, Degeneration, and the End: Studies in the European Fin de Siècle, ed. by Marja Härmänmaa and Christopher Nissen (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 103-124
Sam Hirst, ‘Bedfellows of the Worm: The Early History of Female Vampires’, Tor.com (24 July 2020)
Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, Carmilla (1872)
Didier Anzeiu, The Skin-Ego (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987)
Lynda Nead, The Female Nude: Art, Obscenity and Sexuality (London: Routledge, 1992)
Thomas De Quincey, Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1821)
Max Nordau, Degeneration (1892-93)
Arthur Symons, ‘The Decadent Movement in Literature’, Harper’s Magazine (November 1893)
FURTHER READING
Sara Black, ‘Doctors on Drugs: Medical Professionals and the Proliferation of Morphine Addiction in Nineteenth-Century France’, Social History of Medicine 30.1 (2016): 114-36
Sara Black, ‘Morphine on Trial: Legal Medicine and Criminal Responsibility in the Fin de Siècle’, French Historical Studies 42.4 (October 2019): 623-53
Lucy Inglis, Milk of Paradise: A History of Opium (New York and London: Pegasus Books, 2019)
Michael Saler, ed., The Fin-de-Siècle World (New York: Routledge, 2015)
Vanessa R. Schwartz, ‘Museums and Mass Spectacle: The Musée Grévin as a Monument to Modern Life’, French Historical Studies, 19.1 (Spring 1995), pp. 7-26
Jason Szabo, ‘Ecce Homo: Opiates, Suffering, and the Art of Palliation’, in Incurable and Intolerable: Chronic Disease and Slow Death in Nineteenth-Century France (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2009), 136-58
Natalia Angeles Vieyra, ‘Illuminating Addiction: Morphinomania in Fin de Siècle Visual Culture’, Athanor 33: 63-69
Susannah Wilson, ‘Morphinisé / morphinomane / morphinée: cultural representations of a French opioid crisis, 1870-1940’, Contemporary French Civilization 44.4 (2019): 333-57
Linda Gertner Zatlin, Aubrey Beardsley and Victorian Sexual Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990)
This season of ‘Drawing Blood’ was funded in part by the Association for Art History.
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‘Drawing Blood’ cover art © Emma Merkling
All audio and content © Emma Merkling and Christy Slobogin
Intro music: ‘There Will Be Blood’ by Kim Petras, © BunHead Records 2019. We’re still trying to get hold of permissions for this song – Kim Petras text us back!!
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