MPS MEN PORTRAITS SERIES n° 7 Septemer 2020
AT THE CAFÉ menportraits.blogspot.com © Francis Rousseau 2011-2020
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Dice players in a Popina 1 Mosaïque & 2 frescoes Via di Mercurio, 1st century, Pompéi
Cafés and bars as we know them in the West today are probably the result of a cross between ancient Eastern establishments (notably Persian) and certain models of taverns or popinae of Imperial Rome. The least that can be said is that the Western origins are, without a doubt, less poetic than the Eastern origins! Indeed in Imperial Rome, the popinae had a rather bad reputation! They were associated with catering, drinking and games, but also and above all with prostitution. Horace called the popinae "sordid and filthy places, invaded by the smoke and bad odors which emanated from the stoves". There were prepared meals, exposed to view in glass jars filled with water which didn't have a cooling effect on the food as one might suspect, but a magnifying effect! Most of these dishes consisted of low-priced cuts of meat that were rarely fresh and always extremely spicy. Galen even reports that sometimes "Human flesh was served as pork". As can be seen from the documents opposite, customers sat on stools, chairs or simple benches arranged around tables, which were either high for eating or low for playing. Unlike the cauponae, where you could get take-away wine, the popinae only offered wine to be consumed on the spot. People went there to eat and drink (possibly), but above all to play dice and to hang out with the riff riff. The Pompeii excavations revealed that some popinae had, in addition to the kitchen and the dining room, several small rooms upstairs, adorned with inspiring erotic scenes, where it was common for clients to bring a prostitute (the most often provided by the institution). Juvenal mentioned in one of his Satires the kind of clientele that frequented the popinae: "Hawkers, muleteers, undertakers, sailors, slaves, mobsters, fugitives". Under the Empire, it was not uncommon for wealthy aristocrats to mingle with the plebs. According to Suetonius, Nero had even gotten into the habit of touring the popinae at nightfall, decked out in a wig. In his madness, he encouraged the development of these establishments before jubilating when he saw them burn down during the famous great fire of Rome on July 18, 64.
MEN PORTRAITS _____________________ AT THE CAFÉ Bacchus is arguably the first bistro owner encountered in the history of Western cafes! Moreover, in his pictorial representations, he is often seated comfortably on THE symbol par excellence of his function: a barrel of wine. Velasquez's canvas represents Bacchus as the god who offers men the wine that will (temporarily) free them from their problems. Moreover, baroque literature as a whole considers Bacchus as the liberator of man from the slavery of his daily life! Here drunkards with sinister looks, mocking eyes and faces marked and damaged by drinking, invite the spectator to participate in their party, without any form of idealization. "Exactly what sort of liberation of mankind is this about?" seems to question this rather disturbing painting by Velasquez, who represents the owner of the tavern as a character with almost virginal white skin and a slightly perverted look! Perhaps doubting the liberation in question, the painter gives his composition a caricatural aspect, almost surreal.
DIEGO VELÁSQUEZ (1599-1660) El triunfo de Baco (Los Borrachos), 1628
The Triumph of Bacchus (The Drunkards), 16281628 Museo del Prado, Madrid
MEN PORTRAITS _____________________ AT THE CAFÉ Cafés were first established in the Middle East, passed from Ethiopia to Arabia and Egypt, and then to the entire Muslim world. In Persia, where the use of coffee was very old, cafes were called qahvehkhaneh (coffee house in the Farsi language), the Farsi word "Quaveh" constituting the eastern root of our word "Coffee". These were places of socialising where men (exclusively) gathered to drink coffee, listen to music, read, play or hear the reading of the Shâh Nâmâ (The Book of Kings) an epic poem written by Dersowsi around the year 1000 which retraces the history of Persia from the creation of the world to the arrival of Islam. The Qahveh-khaneh were often located in the caravanserai (Karvansara in Persian and Fondouk in Arabic), these fortified places essentially reserved for merchants and where caravans laden with treasures stopped between two stages and could take shelter from brigands. In the caravanserais, the rich merchants who led their caravans through the deserts found stables for their horses and camels, shops, rooms… and the Qahveh-khaneh for actual relaxation. In modern Iran, the Qahveh still exist and are still frequented exclusively by men, even though they have traded reading and music ... for television.
Persian miniature
Rest in the caravanserai Safavid Period, vers1598
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It is generally accepted that the very first Qahve Khaneh (Café) opened in the city of Qazvin (Persia), in the 15th century before spreading considerably under the Safavid dynasty (1501-1736). However, it was not until the reign of Abbas the Great (1588-1629), 5th Safavid Shah, that the number of Qahve Khaneh increased significantly in large cities like Tehran, Tabriz, Isfahan and Rasht. Heretofore they became very popular, serving mainly as meeting places between men from the highest classes of Persian society and poets, writers or artists. Royal guests were received there. We know, for example, that Shah Abbas the Great used
Persian miniature A Qahve khaneh (A Coffee House), XVIth century
to go to different cafés in his town, always unexpectedly and always in disguise. The Safavid Shahs considered cafes to be very important places for their "art of governing" (art de gouverner), as they allowed information and rumors to be gathered while maintaining direct contact with the artistic elites of the kingdom. From its inception, the café has not only been a place of relaxation and recreation, but also of important artistic, literary and political exchanges. This is a role it rediscovered in the 19th century in Europe but one which has always played in the East until very recently.
Today, cafés in Tehran don't quite look like they used to, except perhaps under the last Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (1909-1980). Since his abdication, cafes have separated into two categories: Qajar and Qahve Khanehs. The Qajars or tea rooms are the favorite meeting places for high dignitaries of the religious regime. The Qahve Khanehs, on the other hand, are reserved for the working class, who smoke shisha or eat inexpensively. Women have never been allowed into Persian cafes, and even less so in Iran, under the current Mullah regime. No alcohol, strictly prohibited by the Muslim religion, is allowed in either of these establishments.
MEN PORTRAITS _____________________ AT THE CAFÉ The first café opened in Europe was in Belgrade (Serbia) in 1522, shortly after Suleiman Le Magnifique seized the city. Sarajevo followed in 1592. Then the passion reached Venice in 1615. In Austria, the history of cafes begins with the battle of Vienna and the rout of the Ottoman armies. It was the Polish aristocrat and national hero Franciszek Kulczycki who is said to have opened Vienna's first café in 1683, using the coffee beans left behind by the Turks in their escape. In this 19th century painting, we see Kulczycki (in Turkish costume) himself serving coffee to the Viennese bourgeois in his Café called Hof zur Blauen Flasche (House of the Blue Bottle) which was located near the cathedral. His establishment very quickly became one of the most popular places in the city. More recent sources, however, suggest that the first Viennese café was opened by an Armenian, Johannes Théodat in 1685. In London, it was also a young Armenian, Pasqua Rosée, who opened the first café, which rapidly grew in number to more than 2,000 in the 18th century. In France it is in Marseille then in Lyon (and not in Paris) that the first cafes opened in 1660.
Anonymous popular imagery, 1890Hof zur Blauen Flasche Dorotheum, Vienna
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ADRIAEN VAN OSTADE (1610-1685) Taversns. Saint Louis Museum of Art
ADRIAEN VAN OSTADE (1610-1685) Tavern with violonist Art Insitute of Chicago .
ADRIAEN VAN OSTADE (1610-1685) Peasants feasting in a tavern National Gallery of Art, Washington. .
The taverns, represented many times in the paintings of the Dutch painter Adriaen van Ostade, descended from the Tavernae and Popinae of ancient Roman times. Peasants are chatting seated around large tables, drinking and eating by candlelight or dancing in front of crackling fireplaces. A musician is sometimes present who, with his violin, tries to cover the cries of drunkards (see bottom right). In these European taverns (called Locanda in Spain and Bouges in France) which nowadays one would easily refer to as convivial, there are children pictured huddled in their mothers' skirts. The domestic animals seen here and there (especially cats) invite themselves to finish off the remains and chase away the "pests" ... The tavern therefore takes the place of the home, a damp hut, with a thatched roof, not very waterproof, with limited comfort, in which all kinds of diseases and fatal fevers develop. The tavern is more or less a remedy for the unsanitary conditions of peasant habitats with their dirt floors and tiny openings and can be seen as the true ancestor of the modern caférestaurant.
We cannot really say that the hygiene of the taverns was exemplary (the amount of rubbish that litters the ground in all the paintings makes this clear!) But at least there the peasants found more heat, more light and less humidity than in their unsanitary cottages. The straw that littered the ground and that could absorb various materials (and odors) was changed once a day. In the better houses!
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JEAN STEN (1626-1679) In the tavern, 1660 Rijksmuseum
The Renaissance reestablished the use of taverns that the Middle Ages with its endless wars, endemic misery, constant epidemics and intolerant religions had relegated to oblivion. As in Imperial Rome, taverns are places of debauchery where brawls are frequent between drunkards, either over a girl, or a gambling debt, or for cheating, or simply because with the lack of inhibitions brought on by alcohol someone else's face would become unbearable! But sometimes in the midst of these crime dens, a poet would manage to raise his DAVID TENIER LE JEUNE (1610-1690 ) voice and La rixe dans la taverne calm the mood with his songs and his well chosen words ... Of course he had better be very good if he didn't want to end up beaten by the crowd or kicked out! These aces of rhyme or melody thus carried the finest arts into the most improbable dumps of the Earth, truly beggars’ troubadours.
MEN PORTRAITS ____________________ AT THE CAFÉ From the end of the 17th century, the cafes of the past quickly lost their convivial function and returned to the ancient function of popinae by once again becoming places of perdition, haunts of players, cheaters, so-called loose women,runaway criminals and generally shady characters. Caravaggio, a Pasolinian before his time, loved frequenting this underworld and never hesitated using models from there for his Christs or his John the Baptist! Caravaggio, a church painter, actually led a life of absolute debauchery in the slums of Rome, of which this famous painting describes a daily episode. We would like to see in this painting an allegory of youth, victim of its naivety in the face of the dangers of gambling, painted with the aim of educating. Be that the case or not, this painting popularized throughout Europe the theme of the cheater who is shown here (on the right) pulling out of a fold in his britches an appropriate card while a sidekick distracts the young player's attention. . In 1606, Caravaggio, after having been imprisoned several times in Rome for multiple incidents of scandalous morals , had to go into exile in Naples.
CARAVAGGIO (1571-1610) Cheaters, 1597 Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth
MEN PORTRAITS _____________________ AT THE CAFÉ It was without doubt this theme popularized by Caravaggio that inspired Georges de La Tour's two versions of The Cheats. He takes up not only the theme but also the same figure seen from behind in a threequarter pose, taking out a card from his belt. He is positioned on the right in the Caravaggio, on the left in the Latour. The painting takes its title precisely from the character on the left. His right elbow on the table reveals his game to the spectator: three cards, two of which are visible, a seven and, quite logically, the six which he has placed behind him. With his left hand, he draws out the ace of diamonds which has been slipped under his belt, leaving the ace of spades in reserve. The light hits his back, but also his cards, revealing their crisp whiteness. He wears a buffalo skin tunic like the military of the time, which betrays that he is undoubtedly a soldier "on the town" and a bit tipsy. His belt, wide enough to hide several cards, is also black. Another version of this painting exists with the ace of clubs instead of the ace of diamonds. Fans of comparative versions can see then today at the Kimbell Art Museum of Forth Worth (USA).
GEORGES DE LA TOUR (1593-1652) The Ace of Diamonds Cheaters, v.1635-1638 Louvre Museum, Paris
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Plans d’un café anglais au 18e siècle
WILLIAM HOLLAND (1809-1883) Edouard Lloyds’ coffee house in London
Interior of a 17th century London coffee house
From the end of the 17th century, the English structured cafes a little more in creating the Coffee house. More orderly (we notice the furniture and paintings), less of a tawdry hole(large glass openings to the outside), waxed oak parquet floors, always clean in contrast to the floors strewn with 16th century rubbish, the coffee house aimed to be more respectable as witnessed by the presence of several waiters wearing aprons and a cashier dressed more like a nun than a strumpet. Not quite an aristocratic club, the Coffee House remains a favorable place for games but with a phlegm and a self control which will become, under the Victorian era, the undeniable mark of the cafes of Albion a though the sordid persists in the depths of London.
Now before going to the cafe, one puts on one's best clothes, powders one's wig, puts on shoes, and perfume ... The coffee house becomes a place to taste exotic drinks that stimulate the body and mind such as coffee or chocolate; in this engraving, we note the four coffee makers duly kept warm in front of the hearth, as well as the waiter in the foreground who pours the coffee into the cup in the oriental way, making it foam. With the coffee house, the café also becomes a place which bans soldiers' harangues and brawls. The coffee house is a place of refined conversation, literary, artistic and commercial exchanges; see for example here how the merchant praises, by candlelight, to a potential buyer, the beauties of a landscape painting hanging on the wall. The modern cafe was born here, except that women were excluded (other than at the cash register!)
MEN PORTRAITS _____________________ AT THE CAFÉ With this magnificent gouache by Gustave Doré, we are quite far from the cozy atmosphere of the Coffee House! Here, it is a tavern in the notorious district of White Chapel, in an atmosphere close to the novels of Charles Dickens, that Gustave Doré exposes to the viewer. The light is so absent that one hardly distinguishes anything except a few silhoulettes of the poor which stand out in each stall. Arranged there as if in a stable, they watch the lords of Victorian society enter in their top hats, a night on the town slumming it . Accompanied by police officers from Scotland Yard, Doré made, during a working stay in London, the complete tour of the city, from the working-class district of the East End to this district of beggars of White Chapel, doing numerous sketches on the same pattern. These sketches and gouaches were used as illustrations of "London, a Pilgrimage" (1872) byBlanchard Jerrold.
GUSTAVE DORÉ (1832–1883) Tavern at Whitechapel, 18, 1869 Hermitage Museum , St. Petersbourg
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The open-air café - the "Guinguette " - where Sunday sportsmen (swimmers and canoeists) met is one of the great themes of late 19th century painting, largely taken up by the Impressionists and especially Auguste Renoir. Emile Friant (like Gustave Caillebotte) was a great practitioner of water sports. Here he represents comrades sharing a meal after canoeing. But by choosing exactly thirteen figures, he was amusing himself, according to the Museum of Nancy which has this work, evoking the Last Supper, the last meal taken by Christ with the 12 apostles. This curious nod to religious painting is confirmed by the presence of bread and wine in the foreground. We are also tempted to see in this joyful scene of a meal between comrades from the nautical club, the reflection of the fertile emulation of the group of young artists who were then jostling the Nancy art world and consequently the world of art in general. .
ÉMILE FRIANT (1863-1932) Les Canotiers de la Meurthe, 1888 Musé́e de l’É́cole de Nancy
MEN PORTRAITS _____________________ AT THE CAFÉ The theme of the social, associative or even political Cafe appears in painting a little after the middle of the 19th century, not in France but… in Germany. In this painting by Hodler it is a banquet of gymnasts. The profusion of flags underlines the rather nationalistic character of this popular party scene. The "Fêtes de la gymnastique" (Turnfeste) born in Germany in 1860 were imitated in France, Switzerland, then almost everywhere in Europe from 1875. In the light of recent FrancoGerman studies, it appears that the Fêtes de la gymnastique were designed for a dual purpose. They aimed, on the one hand, to strengthen the links between gymnasts, to increase their patriotic ardor and to instil in them a political ideal and, on the other hand, to both draw adherents from the public as well as give positive signals of themselves to the civil authorities and the military. The development of gymnastics as an educational and hygienic activity gradually evolved towards a more military and political anchoring, of which the Café became the privileged center of expression.
FERDINAND HODLER (1853-1918) Das Turnerbankett, 1878 Kunsthaus Zürich
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It was at the 5th Impressionist Exhibition that Caillebotte presented this café scene, a painting of modern life. A life-size male figure dominates the composition. He is a model Caillebotte painted on multiple occasions and whom we find here in flabby clothes, the shirt collar open, a little scruffy for the time and posing quite casually, hands in pockets, gazing into the distance. With his wry face and oldfashioned bowler hat screwed to the back of his head like a 'bad boy', he stands in front of the mirror like a pillar of the brewery, cut off from his surroundings. A set of mirrors animates the background, which is in reality the foreground; an overcoat hanging from the hook of the paneling and two hats hanging from a copper bar, including a top hat, a sign of belonging to the good, if not to say high, society. Under the hats: two men are playing cards or dominoes, a universe at the time exclusively male. As evidenced by the sunny foliage and the red and white striped blind (still in the mirror), the scene takes place around noon, in a beautiful establishment on one of the grand boulevards of Paris.
GUSTAVE CAILLEBOTTE (1848-1894) At the Café, Rouen,1880 Museum of Fine Arts, Rouen
The red velvet benches, the paneling decorated with fine gold and the mahogany furniture confirm, if need be, that this is not a dump, but an elegant café, perhaps even the very chic Café de la Paix, Place de l'Opéra… The spectator is therefore asked what a character as shady as this one (and obviously in a trance) can be doing in such an elegant café on the boulevards ? The answer is on the table right behind him. We see four white earthenware saucers in front of the characteristic silhouette of an absinthe glass. Degas and Van Gogh also painted these poor lost souls (from all social classes) literally eaten away by this drug and collapsed in front of their glasses. This painting can therefore be considered as a manifesto by Caillebotte against the liberalisation of drinking establishments, endorsed by the law of July 17, 1880, while absinthe was spreading its ravages ... An impressionist manifesto also, where the subject, the vibrant touch, the clear light acting on the materials it penetrates, the game of simultaneous reflections recall Caillebotte's words: "And since we are closely linked to nature, we no longer separate the figure from the back of an apartment or the back of a street. "...
MEN PORTRAITS _____________________ AT THE CAFÉ This is Renoir's most famous painting, a beautiful Sunday by the water, seated with friends in a Guinguette, a very French form of café, inextricably linked with water sports and rivers. The Guinguette which is painted here is the Maison Fournaise, in Chatou on the banks of the Seine. Boat carpenter, Alphonse Fournaise had set up his workshop on these shores where young Parisians practiced canoeing. Then in 1860, he came up with the idea of opening a café-restaurant, renting boats and accommodating visiting artists. Very quickly Maison Fournaise had an essential place in Parisian life. So in this painting we can see in the foreground on the left (with the dog) Aline Charigot who became Renoir's wife; standing behind her is the boss: Father Fournaise. Opposite, on the right, with his boater and his white tank top, is Gustave Caillebotte vaguely listening to the famous actress Ellen Andrée, with a by far too curious newspaper editor leaning over her! In the background: on the left, the beautiful young girl leaning on the railing, is Alphonsine Fournaise, the owner's daughter, who was one of the favorite models of impressionist painters. To her right, in the background dressed in black, the actress of the Comédie Française Jeanne Samary plugs her ears! In the background still in a top hat, chatting with the young poet Jules Laforgue, is the banker Charles Ephrussi who bought this painting from Renoir and kept it in his mansion at 11 Avenue d'Iéna..
PIERRE-AUGUSTE RENOIR (1841-1919) Le déjeuner des Canotiers, 1880-81 The Phillips Collection
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EDOUARD MANET (1832-1883) At the Café́ Concert, 1879 Walters Art Museum
TOULOUSE-LAUTREC (1864-1901) Au Café - Le client et la caissière Kunsthaus, Zurich
ÉDOUARD MANET (1832-1883) At the Père Lathuille's, 1879 Museum of Fine Arts ofTournai, France
Café tables representing (more or less) gallant scenes were to interest all the great French impressionists from the middle of the 19th century. The two main trends are now romantic rendering and realistic rendering. Manet, in the many cafe scenes he painted, illustrated both tendencies: on the left the realistic tendency and on the right the romantic tendency with this touching scene of flirtation, carried out in the famous cabaret- Père Lathuille restaurant where he often went, shortly before his death. This establishment was located just behind the Barrier de Clichy (to avoid Parisian wine taxes!) on the site of the current cinema at 7, avenue de Clichy precisely. In this painting praising the verdant setting of the garden restaurant, we see an affable and smiling young man hurrying over to a young woman and wooing her, glass of champagne at his fingertips and an insistent fiery eye! Less amiable are the representations of Toulouse-Lautrec who, in these two silhouettes captured on the spot, say it all: a fat, very ugly man in a bourgeois costume and a pretty anemic blonde who, although a cashier at the Grand Café, is ready to do anything to get a free meal or ... an absinthe.
Several revolutions have shaken the world, religions have been born to try (in vain) to moralise the lives of men, clubs and orders of all persuasions have proliferated, but ultimately little has changed in the practice of cafes since the period of the Popinae of Imperial Rome and the tawdry cafes of the Middle Ages. Only the sets and costumes have changed… like in a street theater comedy … La Comédie Humaine so well portrayed by Balzac, the Café of which has become the privileged place of expression..
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It was in the cafés of New Orleans (which were also brothels) that jazz music was born, thus reconnecting (in its own way) with the oriental cultural roots of Kavhe. The Bone Player was painted by Mount as a commission from the printers Goupil and Company for two lithographs of AfricanAmerican musicians, intended for sale on the European market. This is the last in a series of five portraits of musicians that Mount executed between 1849 and 1856. By titling his composition The Bone Player, he indicates that it is more the musical talent of his model that interests him than his identity. Bones, played in pairs, are a percussion (or concussion) instrument resonating by itself. The technique was introduced to the United States by Irish immigrants who often replaced bones with small metal spoons struck against each other. Very old traces of this instrument can be found all over the world in China, Egypt, Greece, Rome, North India or Africa. In the 19th century, bones contributed to the enrichment and sometimes to the emergence of many musical genres, such as minstrel shows, blues, traditional Irish
WILLIAM SIDNEY MOUNT (1807-1868) The Bone Player, 1856. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
music, bluegrass, zarico, Quebec music and that of the Cape Breton Island. The clicking of the bones produces a very dry sound, much sharper than that of the washboard (another concussion instrument that appeared in New Orleans). Mount, who himself played the violin and loved music, had business acumen and knew that paintings of African-American musicians would sell better than others: these musicians appealed to both Europeans because of their "exoticism" and Americans because they were considered distinctly American. Mount was not an abolitionist, but whatever his political ideas were, he carefully avoided caricaturing the physique of his subject and instead devoted himself to a description of an individual he'd actually met, with his high cheekbones. , his white teeth, his well-groomed mustache… and his joy in making music in a cafe. Mount thus stands in contrast to the representations of African Americans in the genre painting of the era which was often caricaturale. The fact that the painting is life size further facilitates the individual human approach to this personage .
MEN PORTRAITS _____________________ AT THE CAFÉ This café was and still remains today one of the most elegant in Paris. Restored to what it was originally, this setting truly helped to establish the standards of chic coffee! Everything about it was copied and especially its major innovation: the terrace on the street! With its terrace, for the first time, the café was exposed to the outside eye and a client could observe the movement of the crowd and the street, thus elevated to the rank of a real show. The terrace was luxuriously furnished with round, copper-rimmed marble tables and ornate cast-iron bases. It was protected from bad weather by several removable canvas canopies, adjustable according to the hours of the day, the height of modernism. The terraces were regularly surveyed by the waiters! Those of the Café de la Paix were among the first to wear a professional uniform which had to always be impeccable. It consisted of a black suit, a white shirt fastened with a white bow tie and above all with a long white apron descending from the waist to the floor. A starched napkin folded over the left forearm accompanied the round tray on which the drinks and ... the bill.. were placed. The Parisian Café style was born...
CONSTANTIN KOROVINE (1861-1939) Le Café de la Paix à Paris, 1939 Private Collection
MEN PORTRAITS _____________________ AT THE CAFÉ In the United States, the function of the saloon is different from that of a simple bar, but quite similar to that of an english café or club. It was a place of camaraderie and male bonding. It is precisely the apology of these two "values" that the painter John Sloan makes in this canvas, happy, at the same time, to be able to illustrate his favorite theory according to which "The true artist must find beauty in the most common things ”. Sloan often stopped by this New York bar, fascinated by "the extent of the human qualities he saw unfolding there on every occasion." The place is clean, the beer seems to be flowing, pictures and masks on the walls bring back memories to one another; the clock tells the time and the waiter wears the same traditional long, immaculate apron as European waiters. There is a British side to this saloon/bar which they didn't all have. Things frequently got out of control and as one sank into the depths of America, towards the Wild West for example, the atmosphere was quite different and the numerous brawls often provoked indiscriminate use of the Colt! The Bar pictured in thispainting still exists today in New York City at 15 E 7th St. It has retained its same jovial mood and friendly character but with one notable change: it is no longer exclusively formen! In 1970 the saloon opened to ladies and since 1980 a woman has replaced the man with the bow tie who proudly sat behind the bar ... and she also wears the bow tie!
JOHN SLOAN (1871-1951) McSorley’s Bar, 1912 Detroit Institute of Art
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VINCENT VAN GOGH (1853-1890) Le Café de nuit Yale University Art Gallery
This painting is mythical. It has even inspired a fake Café de Nuit which established by unscrupulous local cabaret-keepers has thrived in Arles for years astounding but nevertheless abusing tourists. Vincent van Gogh imagined this painting in August 1888. He mentioned the idea in a letter dated 6th of the same month to his brother Theo: «... Today I will probably enter the
interior of the cafe where I have a room, in the evening under the gas light. Here they call it a "Night Cafe" (there are quite a few of them here), i-e open all night. 'Night prowlers' can find refuge there if they do not have money for shelter or if they are too drunk to go home.» It is therefore the cafe of the desperate and the rejected that he illustrates with these abandoned tables, scattered chairs and inexpressive silhouettes sleeping or waiting. Yet next to a loving couple seated at the table in the background: "hope" represented, on the greenish sideboard, by a bouquet of flowers, bright, incongruous, consoling. On September 8, 1888 the painting was finished. Immediately afterwards, he exhibited it in his room at the Maison Jaune and commented on it as follows:
"... I have just finished a painting which represents a cafe interior at night lit by lamps. A few poor night prowlers sleep in a corner. The room is painted red and there is, under the gas, the green billiard table which projects an immense shadow on the floor. In this canvas there are six different reds from blood red to soft pink in opposition to as many pale or dark greens. "
1892 - The MET Museum, New York
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The Greek painter Yannis Tsarouchis painted numerous sailors and cafés, male nudes being in fact the main subject of his work. Settled in Paris from 1967, he tirelessly continued to paint these sailors at tables in sailors' bars in Piraeus or elsewhere. Here the sailor tries to write a letter to his family - if he still has one - or to the person he left in the last port visited- if he is not already in the process of forgettng. Obviously he is not very inspired and his gaze seems to have drifted off on its own seaward voyage! JOHN CRAXTON (1922-2009) Three Sailors
Port cafés are not like city cafés. These are places in which sailors on a stopover meet, as in the films of Jacques Demy, "Les Demoiselles de Rochefort", or "Lola" or in the film by Jules Dassin "Never on Sunday". Sailors on stopovers are often more surprising and less crude than John Craxton's who are thinking only of drinking, eating and partying ... according to the refrain of the popular song: » "Let's go to the sailors' bars De Recouvrance in Saint-Malo We forget the taste of good wine And the sailors' women"
YANNIS TSAROUCHIS (1910-1989) Sailor at a table , 1950
MEN PORTRAITS _____________________ AT THE CAFÉ The Norwegian journalist and painter Christian Krohg has, through his paintings, elevated the sailors of his country to the rank of national heroes, always victorious in the most difficult situations. This heroic status was to serve as an example to intellectuals, politicians and trade unionists in a country in search of independence until 1905. The humanist mission that Krohg gave to his art was also confirmed in portraits of famous public figures or scenes of political or union parades. An astonishing series of paintings shows in particular a dozen portraits of sailors, often in action, struggling with a raging, sometimes deadly sea. Krohg scrutinizes the smallest detail betraying the journalist that he is, specializing in documentaries: every corner of the boat is boldly outlined, while the coxswain, coming out half-length from the tween decks and hanging on to the rudder, feverishly fixes the horizon of the sea and the sky.Late in his life, Krohg tirelessly took up the theme of the duel of man and the sea as a motif, especially for its symbolic value and no longer for its exclusively sociological value (which was the case for his works produced between 1879 and 1894 in Skagen, a coastal village in northern Denmar).
CHRISTIAN KROHG (1852-1925) Losen Tar Seg en Røyk, 1912 (Sailor inhaling a puff) Lillehammer Kunstmuseum, Norvège
Sometimes his seascapes in Norway fit into the register of fiction, mixing past and present. Like the sailor dressed in yellow oilcloth and wearing a sou'wester, posed near a cabin boy, who inspired the artist's "Leif Eriksson Discovering America". In the painting opposite, it is obviously a sailor who has the spotlight yet again. A sailor who takes a moment's rest, puffing on his pipe hidden in the palm of his hand, protecting himself from the wind which could extinguish the flame; the matchbox is visible and smoke is coming out of his folded hands. He succeeded! And Krohg seems to say once more to the spectator: "See how the sailors struggle even to obtain the right to a moment of rest". Everything is tensed around this gesture and its success: no telltale gaze here (eyes are closed) or legible expressions on the lips (the mouth is hidden)…. The scene takes place not on the deck of a boat but in a café, in one of those sailors' bars born in the ports of northern Europe and which are full of individuals between two stopovers (literally as well as figuratively). It is force of habit and distraction or a relaxed moment that makes the sailor slip into the familiar stance of fighting the elements to light his pipe ... even in a bar.
1892 - The MET Museum, New York
MEN PORTRAITS _____________________ AT THE CAFÉ Nighthawks is Edward Hopper’s most famous
work. This reknown is not undeserved as the artistic prowess of this painting is immense. Indeed seated at this counter, we are both inside and outside. And yet, these characters are very far from us, unreachable, locked in this diner as in a giant aquarium. There is a door behind the bartender, but it is more of a service closet than a door. In this diner, neither entry nor exit is suggested. Even the bartender seems trapped, surrounded by the walls of his triangular counter. And then there is the pictorial exploit a hundred times pointed out by which Hopper succeeds in blurring the glass wall ..; gradually, giving the illusion that there is no more glass in the back of the picture! Even in the smallest details, the painter gives his work a deep dimension with a very controlled touch. This "showcase cafe" would be unreal if it weren't for the two percolators attached to the wall as a piece of ID! Now legendary, this café or diner that Hopper claimed actually existed has never been found by anyone. Many have tried to find out where it was, looking for it in New York City on Greenwich Avenue and elsewhere ... to no avail. Perhaps it was only present in Hopper's imagination. And it's probably best that way. This café, as seen by Hopper, has become the ultimate expression of the loneliness of the modern men….and women.
EDWARD HOPPER (1882-1967) Nighthawks, 1942 MoMA
MPS MEN PORTRAITS SERIES n° 7 ©Francis Rousseau 2011-2020 © Translation : Ann Menhuhin htpp : //menportraits.blogspot.com September 2020
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