The Arts

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Comment by Gregory on January 11, 2009 at 10:24pm

And for those of us who do not use it...we struggle to find it's relationship to Irish arts?

Comment by Max327 on September 12, 2008 at 2:02am

What history does Absinthe play in the impressionist and post impressionist movements.

"Absinthe has long been believed to be hallucinogenic. This belief got a contemporary boost in the 1970s when a scientific paper mistakenly reported thujone was related to THC, the active chemical in marijuana, which has hallucinogenic properties.Martin Paul Smith incorrectly argued that absinthe had narcotic effects due to the fermentation process in early 2008.

Ten years after his 19th century experiments with wormwood oil, the French Dr. Magnan studied 250 cases of alcoholism and claimed that those who drank absinthe were worse off than those drinking ordinary alcohol, and that they experienced rapid-onset hallucinations.

Such accounts by absinthe opponents were embraced by its most famous users, many of whom were bohemian artists or writers.
In one of the best known accounts of absinthe drinking, Oscar Wilde described the feeling of having tulips on his legs after leaving a bar. Two famous painters who helped popularize the notion that absinthe had powerful psychoactive properties were Toulouse Lautrec and Vincent van Gogh (who suffered from mental instability throughout his life)."

It is estimated that the active ingredient thujone in Absinthe used in the 19th century was 100 times stonger that is recomended in todays drink.

One example is many have speculated that Van Gogh was bi-polar, among many other diagnosis for his work.
The use of this alcoholic drink, especially with the high doses of thujone put a completely different light on the picture.