Aubrey Beardsley
Portrait of Beardsley by Frederick Hollyer, 1896
Birth name	Aubrey Vincent Beardsley
Born	(1872-08-21)21 August 1872 Brighton, England
Died	16 March 1898(1898-03-16) (aged 25) Menton, France
Nationality	English
Field	Illustration
Training	Westminster School of Art
Movement	Art Nouveau, Aestheticism

Aubrey Vincent Beardsley (21 August 1872 – 16 March 1898) was an English illustrator and author. His drawings in black ink, and influenced by the style of Japanese woodcuts, emphasized the grotesque, the decadent, and the erotic. He was a leading figure in the Aesthetic movement which also included Oscar Wilde and James A. McNeill Whistler. Beardsley's contribution to the development of the Art Nouveau and poster styles was significant, despite the brevity of his career before his early death from tuberculosis.

Life[link]

Aubrey Beardsley, c. 1895

Beardsley was born in Brighton, England, on 21 August 1872, and christened on 24 Oct 1872.^[1] His father, Vincent Paul Beardsley (1839–1909), was the son of a tradesman; Vincent had no trade himself, however, and instead relied on a private income from an inheritance that he received from his maternal grandfather when he was twenty-one years of age.^[2] Vincent's wife, Ellen Agnus Pitt (1846–1932), was the daughter of Surgeon-Major William Pitt of the Indian Army. The Pitts were a well-established and respected family in Brighton, and Beardsley's mother married a man of lesser social status than might have been expected. Soon after their wedding, Vincent was obliged to sell some of his property in order to settle a claim for his "breach of promise" from another woman who claimed that he had promised to marry her.^[3] At the time of his birth, Beardsley's family, which included his sister Mabel who was one year older, were living in Ellen's familial home at 12 Buckingham Road.^[4]

In 1883 his family settled in London, and in the following year he appeared in public as an "infant musical phenomenon," playing at several concerts with his sister. He attended Brighton, Hove and Sussex Grammar School in 1884, before moving on to attend Bristol Grammar School, where in 1885 he wrote a play, which he performed together with other students. At about the same time his first drawings and cartoons were published in the school newspaper of the Bristol Grammar School Past and Present. In 1888 he obtained a post in an architect's office, and afterwards one in the Guardian Life and Fire Insurance Company. In 1891, under the advice of Sir Edward Burne-Jones and Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, he took up art as a profession. In 1892 he attended the classes at the Westminster School of Art, then under Professor Fred Brown.

Work[link]

The Stomach Dance, 1893

In 1892, Beardsley travelled to Paris, where he discovered the poster art of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and the Parisian fashion for Japanese prints, both of which would be major influences on his own style. Beardsley's first commission was Le Morte d'Arthur by Thomas Malory (1893), which he illustrated for the publishing house J. M. Dent and Company.^[5]

His six years of major creative output can be divided into several periods, identified by the form of his signature. In the early period his work is mostly unsigned. During 1891 and 1892 he progressed to using his initials, A.V.B. In mid-1892, the period of Le Morte d'Arthur and The Bon Mots he used a Japanese-influenced mark which became progressively more graceful, sometimes accompanied by A.B. in block capitals.^[6] He co-founded The Yellow Book with American writer Henry Harland, and for the first four editions he served as Art Editor and produced the cover designs and many illustrations for the magazine. He was also closely aligned with Aestheticism, the British counterpart of Decadence and Symbolism. Most of his images are done in ink, and feature large dark areas contrasted with large blank ones, and areas of fine detail contrasted with areas with none at all.

Beardsley was the most controversial artist of the Art Nouveau era, renowned for his dark and perverse images and grotesque erotica, which were the main themes of his later work. His illustrations were in black and white, against a white background. Some of his drawings, inspired by Japanese shunga artwork, featured enormous genitalia. His most famous erotic illustrations concerned themes of history and mythology; these include his illustrations for a privately printed edition of Aristophanes' Lysistrata, and his drawings for Oscar Wilde's play Salome, which eventually premiered in Paris in 1896. Other major illustration projects included an 1896 edition of The Rape of the Lock by Alexander Pope, and the collection A Book of Fifty Drawings by Aubrey Beardsley (1897).^[7]

The Peacock Skirt, 1893

He also produced extensive illustrations for books and magazines (e.g. for a deluxe edition of Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur) and worked for magazines such as The Studio and The Savoy, of which he was a co-founder. As a cofounder of The Savoy, Beardsley was able to pursue his writing as well as illustration, and a number of his writings, including Under the Hill (a story based on the Tannhäuser legend) and “The Ballad of a Barber” appeared in the magazine.^[8] Beardsley was a caricaturist and did some political cartoons, mirroring Wilde's irreverent wit in art. Beardsley's work reflected the decadence of his era and his influence was enormous, clearly visible in the work of the French Symbolists, the Poster art Movement of the 1890s and the work of many later-period Art Nouveau artists like Pape and Clarke.

Beardsley was a public as well as private eccentric. He said, "I have one aim—the grotesque. If I am not grotesque I am nothing." Wilde said he had "a face like a silver hatchet, and grass green hair." Beardsley was meticulous about his attire: dove-grey suits, hats, ties; yellow gloves. He would appear at his publisher's in a morning coat and patent leather pumps^{[disambiguation needed ]}.

Tailpiece or Cul de Lampe, 1893

Although Beardsley was associated with the homosexual clique that included Oscar Wilde and other English aesthetes, the details of his sexuality remain in question. He was generally regarded as asexual—which is hardly surprising, considering his chronic illness and his devotion to his work. Speculation about his sexuality include rumors of an incestuous relationship with his elder sister, Mabel, who may have become pregnant by her brother and miscarried.^[9][10] During his entire career, Beardsley had recurrent attacks of the disease that would end it. He suffered frequent lung hemorrhages and was often unable to work or leave his home.

Beardsley converted to Roman Catholicism in March 1897, and would subsequently beg his publisher, Leonard Smithers, to “destroy all copies of Lysistrata and bad drawings... by all that is holy all obscene drawings." Smithers ignored Beardsley’s wishes, and actually continued to sell reproductions as well as forgeries of Beardsley's work.^[6]

Beardsley was active till his death in Menton, France, at the age of 25 on 16 March 1898 of tuberculosis.^[11]

Media portrayals[link]

In the BBC 1982 Playhouse drama Aubrey, written by John Selwyn Gilbert, Beardsley was portrayed by actor John Dicks. The drama concerned Beardsley's life from the time of Oscar Wilde’s arrest in April 1895, which resulted in Beardsley losing his position at The Yellow Book, to his death from tuberculosis in 1898.^[12]

Gallery[link]

• 

  The Black Domino

• 

  How Sir Tristram Drank of the Love Drink

• 

  Oriental Dancer

• 

  The Barge

See also[link]

• Art Nouveau

References[link]

Bibliography[link]

• Beardsley, Aubrey, Simon Wilson, and Linda Gertner Zatlin. 1998. Aubrey Beardsley: a centenary tribute. Tokyo: Art Life Ltd. OCLC 42742305
• Beerbohm, Max. 1928. 'Aubrey Beardsley' in A Variety of Things. New York, Knopf.
• Benkovitz, Miriam J. 1980. Aubrey Beardsley, an Account of his Life. New York, N.Y.: Putnam. ISBN 0-399-12408-X.
• Brophy, Brigid. 1969. Black and White; a Portrait of Aubrey Beardsley. New York, N.Y.: Stein and Day.
• Calloway, Stephen. 1998. Aubrey Beardsley. New York, N.Y.: Harry N. Abrams. ISBN 0-8109-4009-4.
• Fletcher, Ian. 1987. Aubrey Beardsley. Boston, M.A.: Twayne Publishers. ISBN 0-8057-6958-7.
• Pozzana, Laurent. 1994. Aubrey Beardsley, illustrateur et metteur en scène de la Salomé d'Oscar Wilde Aix-en-Provence, University of Provence, Sudoc 011401427
• Ross, Robert 1909. Aubrey Beardsley. London: John Lane.
• Snodgrass, Chris. 1995. Aubrey Beardsley: Dandy of the Grotesque. New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-509062-4.
• Symons, Arthur. 1898. Aubrey Beardsley. London: At the Sign of the Unicorn.
• Sturgis, Matthew. 1998. Aubrey Beardsley: a Biography. Woodstock, N.Y.: Overlook Press. ISBN 0-87951-910-X.
• Weintraub, Stanley. 1967. Beardsley: a Biography. New York, N.Y.: Braziller.
• Zatlin, Linda G. 1997. Beardsley, Japonsime, and the Perversion of the Victorian Ideal. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-58164-8.
• Zatlin, Linda G. 1990. Aubrey Beardsley and Victorian Sexual Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 019817506X.
• Zatlin, Linda G. 2007. “Aubrey Beardsley and the Shaping of Art Nouveau.” Bound for the 1890s: Essays on Writing and Publishing in Honor of James G. Nelson. Ed. Jonathan Allison. Buckinghamshire: Rivendale Press.
• Zatlin, Linda G. “Wilde, Beardsley, and the Making of Salome.” Scholars Library, 2007; originally published in The Journal of Victorian Culture 5.2 (November 2000): 341-57.
• Zatlin, Linda G. “Aubrey Beardsley.” Encyclopedia of Europe 1789-1914. Chicago: Gale Research, 2006.

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Aubrey Beardsley

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Aubrey Beardsley

Wikisource has original works written by or about: Aubrey Beardsley

• Works by or about Aubrey Beardsley in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Aubrey Beardsley's gravesite, Menton, France (at findagrave.com)
• Works displayed at Art Renewal Center website
• Aubrey Beardsley Collection at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin

Jim Morrison
Performing with The Doors, 1967
Background information
Birth name	James Douglas Morrison
Also known as	The Lizard King, Mr. Mojo Risin' (anagram of "Jim Morrison")
Born	(1943-12-08)December 8, 1943 Melbourne, Florida, U.S.
Died	July 3, 1971(1971-07-03) (aged 27) Paris, France
Genres	Psychedelic rock, blues rock, acid rock, rock and roll, hard rock
Occupations	Musician, songwriter, poet, filmmaker, actor
Instruments	Vocals, maracas, tambourine, occasional keyboards and harmonica
Years active	1965–1971
Labels	Elektra, Columbia
Associated acts	The Doors Rick & the Ravens
Website	thedoors.com

James Douglas "Jim" Morrison (December 8, 1943 – July 3, 1971) was the lead singer and lyricist of the rock band The Doors, as well as a poet.^[1] Following The Doors' explosive rise to fame in 1967, Morrison developed a severe alcohol and drug dependency that culminated in his death at the age of 27 in Paris. He is presumed to have died from a heroin overdose, but as no autopsy was performed, the events surrounding his death and the exact cause of it continue to be disputed by many to this day.

Morrison was well known for often improvising spoken word poetry passages while the band played live. Due to his wild personality and performances, he is regarded by critics and fans as one of the most iconic, charismatic and pioneering frontmen in rock music history.^[2] Morrison was ranked number 47 on Rolling Stone's list of the "100 Greatest Singers of All Time",^[3] and number 22 on Classic Rock Magazine's "50 Greatest Singers In Rock".^[4]

Early years[link]

James Douglas Morrison was born in Melbourne, Florida, to future Rear Admiral George Stephen Morrison and Clara Morrison. Morrison had a sister, Anne Robin, who was born in 1947 in Albuquerque, New Mexico; and a brother, Andrew Lee Morrison, who was born in 1948 in Los Altos, California. He was of Irish and Scottish descent.^[5]

In 1947, Morrison, then four years old, allegedly witnessed a car accident in the desert, in which a family of Native Americans were injured and possibly killed. He referred to this incident in a spoken word performance on the song "Dawn's Highway" from the album An American Prayer, and again in the songs "Peace Frog" and "Ghost Song."

Morrison believed this incident to be the most formative event of his life,^[6] and made repeated references to it in the imagery in his songs, poems, and interviews. His family does not recall this incident happening in the way he told it. According to the Morrison biography No One Here Gets Out Alive, Morrison's family did drive past a car accident on an Indian reservation when he was a child, and he was very upset by it. The book The Doors, written by the remaining members of The Doors, explains how different Morrison's account of the incident was from the account of his father. This book quotes his father as saying, "We went by several Indians. It did make an impression on him [the young James]. He always thought about that crying Indian." This is contrasted sharply with Morrison's tale of "Indians scattered all over the highway, bleeding to death." In the same book, his sister is quoted as saying, "He enjoyed telling that story and exaggerating it. He said he saw a dead Indian by the side of the road, and I don't even know if that's true."

With his father in the United States Navy, Morrison's family moved often. He spent part of his childhood in San Diego. While his father was stationed at NAS Kingsville, he attended Flato Elementary in Kingsville, Texas. In 1958 Morrison attended Alameda High School in Alameda, California. He graduated from George Washington High School (now George Washington Middle School) in Alexandria, Virginia in June 1961. His father was also stationed at Mayport Naval Air Station in Jacksonville, Florida.

Morrison was inspired by the writings of philosophers and poets. He was influenced by Friedrich Nietzsche, whose views on aesthetics, morality, and the Apollonian and Dionysian duality would appear in his conversation, poetry and songs. He read Plutarch’s "Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans". He read the works of the French Symbolist poet Arthur Rimbaud, whose style would later influence the form of Morrison’s short prose poems. He was influenced by Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Charles Baudelaire, Molière and Franz Kafka. Honoré de Balzac and Jean Cocteau, along with most of the French existentialist philosophers. His senior-year English teacher said that, "Jim read as much and probably more than any student in class, but everything he read was so offbeat I had another teacher, who was going to the Library of Congress, check to see if the books Jim was reporting on actually existed. I suspected he was making them up, as they were English books on sixteenth- and seventeenth-century demonology. I’d never heard of them, but they existed, and I’m convinced from the paper he wrote that he read them, and the Library of Congress would’ve been the only source."^[7]

Morrison was arrested in Tallahassee after pulling a prank while drunk at a football game

Morrison went to live with his paternal grandparents in Clearwater, Florida, where he attended classes at St. Petersburg College (then known as a junior college). In 1962, he transferred to Florida State University (FSU) in Tallahassee, where he appeared in a school recruitment film.^[8] While attending FSU, Morrison was arrested for a prank, following a home football game.^[9]

In January 1964 Morrison moved to Los Angeles to attend the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He enrolled in Jack Hirschman's class on Antonin Artaud in the Comparative Literature program within the UCLA English Department. Artaud's brand of surrealist theatre had a profound impact on Morrison's dark poetic sensibility of cinematic theatricality.

Morrison completed his undergraduate degree at UCLA's film school within the Theater Arts department of the College of Fine Arts in 1965. He never went to the graduation ceremony, instead having his degree diploma mailed to him. He made several short films while attending UCLA. First Love, the first of these films, made with Morrison's classmate and roommate Max Schwartz, was released to the public when it appeared in a documentary about the film Obscura. During these years, while living in Venice Beach, he became friends with writers at the Los Angeles Free Press. Morrison was an advocate of the underground newspaper until his death in 1971. He later conducted a lengthy and in-depth interview with Bob Chorush and Andy Kent, both working for the Free Press at the time (January 1971), and was planning on visiting the headquarters of the busy newspaper shortly before leaving for Paris.^[10]

The Doors[link]

In the summer of 1965, after graduating with a degree from the UCLA film school, Morrison led a bohemian lifestyle in Venice Beach. Living on the rooftop of a building inhabited by his old UCLA cinematography friend, Dennis Jakobs, he wrote the lyrics of many of the early songs the Doors would later perform live and record on albums, the most notable being "Moonlight Drive" and "Hello, I Love You". According to Jakobs, he lived on canned beans and LSD for several months. Morrison and fellow UCLA student, Ray Manzarek, were the first two members of the Doors, forming the group during that same summer of 1965. They had previously met months earlier as fellow cinematography students. The now-legendary story claims that Manzarek was lying on the beach at Venice one day, where he accidentally encountered Morrison. He was impressed with Morrison's poetic lyrics, claiming that they were "rock group" material. Thereafter, drummer John Densmore and guitarist Robby Krieger joined. Krieger auditioned at Densmore's recommendation and was then added to the lineup. All three musicians shared a common interest in the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's meditation practices at the time, attending scheduled classes, but Morrison was not involved in this series of classes, claiming later that he "did not meditate".

Promotional photo of the Doors in late 1966

The Doors took their name from the title of Aldous Huxley's book The Doors of Perception (a reference to the unlocking of doors of perception through psychedelic drug use). Huxley's own title was a quotation from William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, in which Blake wrote: "If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite."

Although Morrison was known as the lyricist of the group, Krieger also made significant lyrical contributions, writing or co-writing some of the group's biggest hits, including "Light My Fire", "Love Me Two Times", "Love Her Madly", and "Touch Me".^[11] On the other hand, Morrison, who didn't write songs using an instrument, would come up with vocal melodies for his own lyrics, with the other band members contributing chords and rhythm. He didn't play any instrument live (except for maracas, tambourine, and harmonica on a few occasions) or in the studio (excluding maracas, tambourine, handclaps, and whistling). However, he did play the grand piano on "Orange County Suite" and a Moog synthesizer on "Strange Days".

In June 1966, Morrison and the Doors were the opening act at the Whisky a Go Go on the last week of the residency of Van Morrison's band Them.^[12] Van's influence on Jim's developing stage performance was later noted by John Densmore in his book Riders On The Storm: "Jim Morrison learned quickly from his near-namesake's stagecraft, his apparent recklessness, his air of subdued menace, the way he would improvise poetry to a rock beat, even his habit of crouching down by the bass drum during instrumental breaks."^[13] On the final night, the two Morrisons and their two bands jammed together on "Gloria".^[14][15][16]

Jim Morrison performing at Copenhagen in September 1968

The Doors achieved national recognition after signing with Elektra Records in 1967.^[17] The single "Light My Fire" spent three weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in July/August 1967.^[18] Later, the Doors appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, a popular Sunday night variety series that had introduced the Beatles and Elvis Presley to the United States. Ed Sullivan requested two songs from the Doors for the show, "People Are Strange" and "Light My Fire". Sullivan's censors insisted that the Doors change the lyrics of the song "Light My Fire" from "Girl we couldn't get much higher" to "Girl we couldn't get much better" for the television viewers; this was reportedly due to what was perceived as a reference to drugs in the original lyrics. After giving assurances of compliance to Sullivan, Morrison then proceeded to sing the song with the original lyrics anyway. When Morrison was later asked why he defied Sullivan's instructions to change the lyrics to the song, he flatly said that he simply forgot to make the change. This infuriated Sullivan, and he refused to shake hands with Morrison or any other band member after their performance. He had a show producer tell the band that they will never do The Ed Sullivan Show again. Morrison reportedly said to the producer, in a defiant tone, "Hey man. We just did the Sullivan Show!"^[19]

Morrison ca. 1968

In 1967, Morrison and the Doors produced a promotional film for "Break on Through (To the Other Side)", which was their first single release. The video featured the four members of the group playing the song on a darkened set with alternating views and close-ups of the performers while Morrison lip-synched the lyrics. Morrison and the Doors continued to make music videos, including "The Unknown Soldier", "Moonlight Drive", and "People Are Strange".

By the release of their second album, Strange Days, the Doors had become one of the most popular rock bands in the United States. Their blend of blues and dark rock tinged with psychedelia included a number of original songs and distinctive cover versions, such as their rendition of "Alabama Song", from Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's opera, Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny. The band also performed a number of extended concept works, including the songs "The End", "When the Music's Over", and "Celebration of the Lizard".

In 1967, photographer Joel Brodsky took a series of black-and-white photos of Morrison, in a photo shoot known as "The Young Lion" photo session. These photographs are considered among the most iconic images of Jim Morrison and are frequently used as covers for compilation albums, books, and other memorabilia of the Doors and Morrison.^[20][21] In 1968, the Doors released their third studio album, Waiting for the Sun. Their fourth album, The Soft Parade, was released in 1969. It was the first album where the individual band members were given credit on the inner sleeve for the songs they had written. Previously, each song on their albums had been credited simply to "The Doors."

On September 6 and 7, 1968, the Doors played four performances at The Roundhouse, London, England with Jefferson Airplane which were filmed by Granada for a television documentary "The Doors are Open" directed by John Sheppard.

Around this time, Morrison—who had long been a heavy drinker—started showing up for recording sessions visibly inebriated. He was also frequently late for live performances. As a result, the band would play instrumental music or force Manzarek to take on the singing duties to subdue the impatient audience.

By 1969, the formerly svelte singer had gained weight, grown a beard and mustache, and had begun dressing more casually—abandoning the leather pants and concho belts for slacks, jeans and T-shirts.

During a March 1, 1969 concert at the Dinner Key Auditorium in Miami, Morrison attempted to spark a riot in the audience. He failed, but a warrant for his arrest was issued by the Dade County Police department three days later for indecent exposure. Consequently, many of The Doors' scheduled concerts were canceled.^[22][23] In 2007 Florida Governor Charlie Crist suggested the possibility of a posthumous pardon for Morrison, which was announced as successful on December 9, 2010.^[24][25] Drummer John Densmore denied Morrison ever exposed himself on stage that night.^[26]

Following The Soft Parade, The Doors released Morrison Hotel. After a lengthy break the group reconvened in October 1970 to record what would become their final album with Morrison, entitled L.A. Woman. Shortly after the recording sessions for the album began, producer Paul A. Rothchild—who had overseen all of their previous recordings—left the project. Engineer Bruce Botnick took over as producer.

Poetry and film[link]

Morrison began writing in earnest during his adolescence. At UCLA he studied the related fields of theater, film, and cinematography.^[27]

He self-published two separate volumes of his poetry in 1969, entitled The Lords / Notes on Vision and The New Creatures. The Lords consists primarily of brief descriptions of places, people, events and Morrison's thoughts on cinema. The New Creatures verses are more poetic in structure, feel and appearance. These two books were later combined into a single volume titled The Lords and The New Creatures. These were the only writings published during Morrison's lifetime.

Morrison befriended Beat poet Michael McClure, who wrote the afterword for Danny Sugerman's biography of Morrison, No One Here Gets Out Alive. McClure and Morrison reportedly collaborated on a number of unmade film projects, including a film version of McClure's infamous play The Beard, in which Morrison would have played Billy the Kid.^[28]

After his death, a further two volumes of Morrison's poetry were published. The contents of the books were selected and arranged by Morrison's friend, photographer Frank Lisciandro, and girlfriend Pamela Courson's parents, who owned the rights to his poetry. The Lost Writings of Jim Morrison Volume I is entitled Wilderness, and, upon its release in 1988, became an instant New York Times Bestseller. Volume II, The American Night, released in 1990, was also a success.

Morrison recorded his own poetry in a professional sound studio on two separate occasions. The first was in March 1969 in Los Angeles and the second was on December 8, 1970. The latter recording session was attended by Morrison's personal friends and included a variety of sketch pieces. Some of the segments from the 1969 session were issued on the bootleg album The Lost Paris Tapes and were later used as part of the Doors' An American Prayer album,^[29] released in 1978. The album reached No. 54 on the music charts. Some poetry recorded from the December 1970 session remains unreleased to this day and is in the possession of the Courson family.

Morrison's best-known but seldom seen cinematic endeavor is HWY: An American Pastoral, a project he started in 1969. Morrison financed the venture and formed his own production company in order to maintain complete control of the project. Paul Ferrara, Frank Lisciandro and Babe Hill assisted with the project. Morrison played the main character, a hitchhiker turned killer/car thief. Morrison asked his friend, composer/pianist Fred Myrow, to select the soundtrack for the film.^[30]

Personal life[link]

Morrison's family[link]

Morrison and his father on the bridge of the USS Bon Homme Richard in January, 1964

Morrison's early life was a nomadic existence typical of military families.^[31] Jerry Hopkins recorded Morrison's brother, Andy, explaining that his parents had determined never to use corporal punishment on their children. They instead instilled discipline and levied punishment by the military tradition known as dressing down. This consisted of yelling at and berating the children until they were reduced to tears and acknowledged their failings.

Once Morrison graduated from UCLA, he broke off most contact with his family. By the time Morrison's music ascended to the top of the charts (in 1967) he had not been in communication with his family for more than a year and falsely claimed that his parents and siblings were dead (or claiming, as it has been widely misreported, that he was an only child). This misinformation was published as part of the materials distributed with The Doors' self-titled debut album.

George "Steve" Morrison was not supportive of his son's career choice in music. One day, an acquaintance brought over a record thought to have Jim on the cover. The record was the Doors self-titled debut. The young man played the record for Morrison's father and family. Upon hearing the record, Morrison's father wrote him a letter telling him "to give up any idea of singing or any connection with a music group because of what I consider to be a complete lack of talent in this direction."^[32]

In a letter to the Florida Probation and Parole Commission District Office dated October 2, 1970, Morrison's father acknowledged the breakdown in family communications as the result of an argument over his assessment of his son's musical talents. He said he could not blame his son for being reluctant to initiate contact and that he was proud of him nonetheless.^[33]

Relationships[link]

Morrison met his long-term companion,^[34] Pamela Courson, well before he gained any fame or fortune,^[35] and she encouraged him to develop his poetry. At times, Courson used the surname "Morrison" with his apparent consent or at least lack of concern. After Courson's death on April 25, 1974, the probate court in California decided that she and Morrison had what qualified as a common-law marriage (see below, under "Estate Controversy").

Morrison's and Courson's relationship was a stormy one, with frequent loud arguments and periods of separation. Biographer Danny Sugerman surmised that part of their difficulties may have stemmed from a conflict between their respective commitments to an open relationship and the consequences of living in such a relationship.

In 1970, Morrison participated in a Celtic Pagan handfasting ceremony with rock critic and science fiction/fantasy author Patricia Kennealy. Before witnesses, one of them a Presbyterian minister,^[36] the couple signed a document declaring themselves wed,^[37] but none of the necessary paperwork for a legal marriage was filed with the state. Kennealy discussed her experiences with Morrison in her autobiography Strange Days: My Life With and Without Jim Morrison in an interview reported in the book Rock Wives.

Morrison also reportedly regularly had sex with fans ("groupies") and had numerous short flings with female celebrities, including Nico, the singer associated with The Velvet Underground, a one night stand with singer Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplane, an on-again-off-again relationship with 16 Magazine's Gloria Stavers as well as an alleged alcohol-fueled encounter with Janis Joplin. However rock musician and rock star expert, Alice Cooper, declared on his syndicated radio show that Jim was scrupulously true to Pamela on tour, eschewing all sexual encounters. Linda Ashcroft, in her book, Wild Child: My Life With Jim Morrison details her life with Morrison as well. Judy Huddleston also recalls her relationship with Morrison in This is The End...My Only Friend: Living and Dying with Jim Morrison. At the time of his death there were as many as twenty paternity actions pending against him, although no claims were made against his estate by any of the putative paternity claimants.

Death[link]

Morrison joined Pam in Paris in March 1971. They took up residence in the city in a rented apartment on the rue Beautreillis (on the Right Bank), and went for long walks throughout the city,^[38] admiring the city's architecture. During this time, Morrison shaved his beard and lost some of the weight he had gained in the previous months.^[39] His last studio recording was with two American street musicians—a session dismissed by Manzarek as "drunken gibberish".^[40] The session included a version of a song-in-progress, "Orange County Suite", which can be heard on the bootleg The Lost Paris Tapes.

Morrison died on July 3, 1971 at age 27.^[41] In the official account of his death, he was found in a Paris apartment bathtub (at 17–19 rue Beautreillis, 4th arrondissement) by Courson. Pursuant to French law, no autopsy was performed because the medical examiner stated that there was no evidence of foul play. The absence of an official autopsy has left many questions regarding Morrison's cause of death.

In Wonderland Avenue, Danny Sugerman discussed his encounter with Courson after she returned to the United States. According to Sugerman's account, Courson stated that Morrison had died of a heroin overdose, having insufflated what he believed to be cocaine. Sugerman added that Courson had given him numerous contradictory versions of Morrison's death, saying at times that she had killed Morrison, or that his death was her fault. Courson's story of Morrison's unintentional ingestion of heroin, followed by his accidental overdose, is supported by the confession of Alain Ronay, who has written that Morrison died of a hemorrhage after snorting Courson's heroin, and that Courson nodded off instead of phoning for medical help, leaving Morrison bleeding to death.^[42]

Ronay confessed in an article in Paris that he then helped cover up the circumstances of Morrison's death.^[43] In the epilogue of No One Here Gets Out Alive, Hopkins and Sugerman write that Ronay and Agnès Varda say Courson lied to the police who responded to the death scene, and later in her deposition, telling them Morrison never took drugs.

In the epilogue to No One Here Gets Out Alive, Hopkins says that 20 years after Morrison's death, Ronay and Varda broke silence and gave this account: They arrived at the house shortly after Morrison's death and Courson said that she and Morrison had taken heroin after a night of drinking. Morrison had been coughing badly, had gone to take a bath, and vomited blood. Courson said that he appeared to recover and that she then went to sleep. When she awoke sometime later Morrison was unresponsive, and so she called for medical assistance.

Courson died of a heroin overdose three years later. Like Morrison, she was also 27 years old at the time of her death. Contrary to initial reports circulating in 1974, she was not buried with Morrison, but rather her cremated ashes were interred in a wall at Fairhaven Memorial Park in Santa Ana, California, with the plaque bearing the name "Pamela Susan Morrison".

In the epilogue of No One Here Gets Out Alive, Hopkins and Sugerman also claim that Morrison had asthma and was suffering from a respiratory condition involving a chronic cough and vomiting blood on the night of his death. This theory is partially supported in The Doors (written by the remaining members of the band) in which they claim Morrison had been coughing up blood for nearly two months in Paris, but it should be noted that none of the members of The Doors were in Paris with Morrison in the months prior to his death.

According to an outside individual who alleges that she witnessed Morrison's funeral at Père Lachaise Cemetery (a woman by the name of Madame Colinette who was at the cemetery that day mourning the recent loss of her husband) the ceremony was "pitiful", with several of the attendants muttering a few words, throwing flowers over the casket, then leaving quickly and hastily within minutes as if their lives depended upon it. Those who attended included Alain Ronay, Agnes Varda, Bill Siddons (manager), Courson, and Robin Wertle (Morrison's Canadian private secretary at the time for a few months).

In the first version of No One Here Gets Out Alive published in 1980, Sugerman and Hopkins gave some credence to the rumor that Morrison may not have died at all, calling the fake death theory “not as far-fetched as it might seem”.^[44] This theory led to considerable distress for Morrison's loved ones over the years, notably when fans would stalk them, searching for evidence of Morrison's whereabouts.^[45][46] In 1995 a new epilogue was added to Sugerman's and Hopkins's book, giving new facts about Morrison's death and discounting the fake death theory, saying “As time passed, some of Jim and Pamela [Courson]'s friends began to talk about what they knew, and although everything they said pointed irrefutably to Jim's demise, there remained and probably always will be those who refuse to believe that Jim is dead and those who will not allow him to rest in peace.”^[47]

Morrison's grave at Père Lachaise (August 2008).

In a July 2007 newspaper interview, a self-described close friend of Morrison's, Sam Bernett, resurrected an old rumor and announced that Morrison actually died of a heroin overdose in the Rock 'n' Roll Circus nightclub, on the Left Bank in Paris. Bernett claims that Morrison came to the club to buy heroin for Courson then did some himself and died in the bathroom. Bernett alleges that Morrison was then moved back to his rue Beautreillis apartment and dumped in the bathtub by the same two drug dealers from whom Morrison had purchased the heroin. Bernett says those who saw Morrison that night were sworn to secrecy in order to prevent a scandal for the famous club,^[48] and that some of the witnesses immediately left the country. There have been many other conspiracy theories surrounding Morrison's death^[49][50] but are less supported by witnesses than are the accounts of Ronay and Courson.^[51]

Grave site[link]

Morrison is buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, one of the city's most visited tourist attractions. The grave had no official marker until French officials placed a shield over it, which was stolen in 1973. The site previous to the 1973 theft (pictured, right) was covered with shells and letters. In 1981, Croatian sculptor Mladen Mikulin placed a bust of Morrison and a new gravestone with Morrison's name at the grave to commemorate the 10th anniversary of his death;^[52] the bust was defaced through the years by cemetery vandals and later stolen in 1988.^[53] In the 1990s Morrison's father, George Stephen Morrison, placed a flat stone on the grave. The stone bears the Greek inscription: ΚΑΤΑ ΤΟΝ ΔΑΙΜΟΝΑ ΕΑΥΤΟΥ, literally meaning "according to his own daemon" and usually interpreted as "true to his own spirit".^[54][55][56] Mikulin later made two more Morrison portraits in bronze but is awaiting the license to place a new sculpture on the tomb.

Estate controversy[link]

^{[citation needed]}

In his last will, notarized in Los Angeles County on February 12, 1969, Morrison (who described himself as "an unmarried person") bequeathed his entire estate to Courson, also naming her co-executor with his attorney, Max Fink; she thus inherited everything upon Morrison’s death in 1971.

Courson died in 1974, leaving her parents as her heirs. Morrison's parents then contested Morrison's will. Courson's parents then produced a document they claimed she had acquired in Colorado, an application for a declaration that she and Morrison had contracted a common-law marriage under the law of that state. Courson, as Morrison's spouse, would inherit even if the will was invalid.

The ability to contract a common-law marriage was abolished in California in 1896. However, California's conflict of laws rule provided for recognition of common-law marriages when lawfully contracted in foreign jurisdictions—and Colorado was one of the eleven United States jurisdictions that still recognized common-law marriage.

Artistic influences[link]

Jim Morrison Memorial in Germany (Berlin-Baumschulenweg)

As a naval family the Morrisons relocated frequently. Consequently Morrison's early education was routinely disrupted as he moved from school to school. Nonetheless he was drawn to the study of literature, poetry, religion, philosophy and psychology, among other fields.

Biographers have consistently pointed to a number of writers and philosophers who influenced Morrison's thinking and, perhaps, his behavior. While still in his teens Morrison discovered the work of philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. He was also drawn to the poetry of William Blake, Charles Baudelaire and Arthur Rimbaud. Beat Generation writers such as Jack Kerouac also had a strong influence on Morrison's outlook and manner of expression; Morrison was eager to experience the life described in Kerouac's On the Road. He was similarly drawn to the work of French writer Louis-Ferdinand Céline. Céline's book, Voyage au Bout de la Nuit (Journey to the End of the Night) and Blake's Auguries of Innocence both echo through one of Morrison's early songs, "End of the Night". Morrison later met and befriended Michael McClure, a well known beat poet. McClure had enjoyed Morrison's lyrics but was even more impressed by his poetry and encouraged him to further develop his craft.

Morrison's vision of performance was colored by the works of 20th century French playwright Antonin Artaud (author of Theater and its Double) and by Julian Beck's Living Theater.

Other works relating to religion, mysticism, ancient myth and symbolism were of lasting interest, particularly Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces. James Frazer's The Golden Bough also became a source of inspiration and is reflected in the title and lyrics of the song "Not to Touch the Earth".

Morrison was particularly attracted to the myths and religions of Native American cultures.^[57] While he was still in school, his family moved to New Mexico where he got to see some of the places and artifacts important to the American Southwest indigenous cultures. These interests appear to be the source of many references to creatures and places such as lizards, snakes, deserts and "ancient lakes" that appear in his songs and poetry. His interpretation of the practices of a Native American "shaman" were worked into parts of Morrison's stage routine, notably in his interpretation of the Ghost Dance, and a song on his later poetry album, The Ghost Song.

Jim Morrison's vocal influences included Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra, which is evident in his own baritone crooning style used in several of The Doors songs. It is mentioned within the pages of "No One Here Gets Out Alive" by Danny Sugerman, that Morrison as a teenager was such a fan of Presley's music that he demanded people be quiet when Elvis was on the radio. The Frank Sinatra influence is mentioned in the pages of "The Doors, The Illustrated History" also by Sugerman, where Frank Sinatra is listed on Morrison's Band Bio as being his favorite singer. Reference to this can also be found in a Rolling Stone article about Jim Morrison, regarding the Top 100 rock singers of all time.

Legacy[link]

German stamp of Jim Morrison

Morrison was, and continues to be, one of the most popular and influential singer-songwriters in rock history. The Doors' catalog has become a unequivocal staple of classic rock radio stations. To this day Morrison is widely regarded as the prototypical rock-star: surly, sexy, scandalous and mysterious.^[58] The leather pants he was fond of wearing both onstage and off have since become stereotyped as rock-star apparel.^[59] In 2011, a Rolling Stone readers' pick placed Jim Morrison in fifth place of the magazine's "Best Lead Singers of All Time".^[60]

Iggy and the Stooges are said to have formed after lead singer Iggy Pop was inspired by Morrison while attending a Doors concert in Ann Arbor, Michigan.^[61] One of Pop's most popular songs, "The Passenger", is said to be based on one of Morrison's poems.^[62] After Morrison's death, Pop was considered as a replacement lead singer for The Doors; the surviving Doors gave him some of Morrison's belongings and hired him as a vocalist for a series of shows. Wallace Fowlie, professor emeritus of French literature at Duke University, wrote Rimbaud and Jim Morrison, subtitled "The Rebel as Poet – A Memoir". In this he recounts his surprise at receiving a fan letter from Morrison who, in 1968, thanked him for his latest translation of Arthur Rimbaud's verse into English. "I don't read French easily", he wrote, "...your book travels around with me." Fowlie went on to give lectures on numerous campuses comparing the lives, philosophies and poetry of Morrison and Rimbaud.

Eddie Vedder, lead singer of the band Pearl Jam,^[63] Layne Staley, the late vocalist of Alice in Chains, Scott Weiland, the vocalist of Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver, Julian Casablancas of The Strokes, James LaBrie of Dream Theater, as well as Scott Stapp of Creed, have all claimed Morrison to be their biggest influence and inspiration. Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver have both covered "Roadhouse Blues" by The Doors. Weiland also filled in for Morrison to perform "Break On Through (To The Other Side)" with the rest of The Doors. Stapp filled in for Morrison for "Light My Fire", "Riders on the Storm" and "Roadhouse Blues" on VH1 Storytellers. Creed performed their version of "Roadhouse Blues" with Robby Krieger for the 1999 Woodstock Festival.

The book The Doors by the remaining Doors quotes Morrison's close friend Frank Lisciandro as saying that too many people took a remark of Morrison's that he was interested in revolt, disorder, and chaos “to mean that he was an anarchist, a revolutionary, or, worse yet, a nihilist. Hardly anyone noticed that Jim was restating Rimbaud and the Surreal poets.”^[64]

Rock band Bon Jovi featured Morrison's grave in their "I'll Sleep While I'm Dead" video clip.

Professional wrestler John Hennigan 's persona John Morrison was inspired by Jim Morrisson, and the name of his finishing move was taken from The Doors' Moonlight Drive.

Books[link]

By Morrison[link]

• The Lords and the New Creatures (1969). 1985 edition: ISBN 0-7119-0552-5
• An American Prayer (1970) privately printed by Western Lithographers. (Unauthorized edition also published in 1983, Zeppelin Publishing Company, ISBN 0-915628-46-5. The authenticity of the unauthorized edition has been disputed.)
• Wilderness: The Lost Writings Of Jim Morrison (1988). 1990 edition: ISBN 0-14-011910-8
• The American Night: The Writings of Jim Morrison (1990). 1991 edition: ISBN 0-670-83772-5

About Morrison[link]

• Dylan Jones, Jim Morrison: Dark Star, (1990) ISBN 0-7475-0951-4
• Linda Ashcroft, Wild Child: Life with Jim Morrison, (1997) ISBN 1-56025-249-9
• Lester Bangs, "Jim Morrison: Bozo Dionysus a Decade Later" in Main Lines, Blood Feasts, and Bad Taste: A Lester Bangs Reader, John Morthland, ed. Anchor Press (2003) ISBN 0-375-71367-0
• Stephen Davis, Jim Morrison: Life, Death, Legend, (2004) ISBN 1-59240-064-7
• John Densmore, Riders on the Storm: My Life With Jim Morrison and the Doors (1991) ISBN 0-385-30447-1
• Dave DiMartino, Moonlight Drive (1995) ISBN 1-886894-21-3
• Wallace Fowlie, Rimbaud and Jim Morrison (1994) ISBN 0-8223-1442-8
• Jerry Hopkins, The Lizard King: The Essential Jim Morrison (1995) ISBN 0-684-81866-3
• Jerry Hopkins and Danny Sugerman, No One Here Gets Out Alive (1980) ISBN 0-85965-138-X
• Patricia Kennealy, Strange Days: My Life With and Without Jim Morrison (1992) ISBN 0-525-93419-7
• Frank Lisciandro, Morrison: A Feast of Friends (1991) ISBN 0-446-39276-6, Morrison — Un festin entre amis (1996) (French)
• Frank Lisciandro, Jim Morrison: An Hour For Magic (A Photojournal) (1982) ISBN 0-85965-246-7, James Douglas Morrison (2005) (French)
• Ray Manzarek, Light My Fire (1998) ISBN 0-446-60228-0L. First by Jerry Hopkins and Danny Sugerman (1981)
• Peter Jan Margry, The Pilgrimage to Jim Morrison's Grave at Père Lachaise Cemetery: The Social Construction of Sacred Space. In idem (ed.), Shrines and Pilgrimage in the Modern World. New Itineraries into the Sacred. Amsterdam University Press, 2008, p. 145–173.
• Thanasis Michos, The Poetry of James Douglas Morrison (2001) ISBN 960-7748-23-9 (Greek)
• Mark Opsasnick, The Lizard King Was Here: The Life and Times of Jim Morrison in Alexandria, Virginia (2006) ISBN 1-4257-1330-0
• James Riordan & Jerry Prochnicky, Break on through : The Life and Death of Jim Morrison (1991) ISBN 0-688-11915-8
• Adriana Rubio, Jim Morrison: Ceremony...Exploring the Shaman Possession (2005) ISBN
• The Doors (remaining members Ray Manzarek, Robby Krieger, John Densmore) with Ben Fong-Torres, The Doors (2006) ISBN 1-4013-0303-X
• Daveth Milton, We Want The World: Jim Morrison, The Living Theatre, and the FBI, (2012) ISBN 978-0957051188

Films[link]

Documentaries featuring Morrison[link]

• The Doors Are Open (1968)
• Live in Europe (1968)
• Live at the Hollywood Bowl (1968)
• Feast of Friends (1970)
• The Doors: A Tribute to Jim Morrison (1981)
• The Doors: Dance on Fire (1985)
• The Soft Parade, a Retrospective (1991)
• Final 24: Jim Morrison (2007), The Biography Channel^[65]
• The Doors: No One Here Gets Out Alive (2009)
• When You're Strange (2009)
• Morrison's Mustang – A Vision Quest to Find The Blue Lady (2011, in production)
• Mr. Mojo Risin': The Story of L.A. Woman

Films about Morrison[link]

• The Doors (1991), A fiction film by director Oliver Stone, starring Val Kilmer as Morrison and with cameos by Krieger and Densmore. Kilmer's performance was praised by some critics. Ray Manzarek, The Doors' keyboardist, harshly criticized Stone's portrayal of Morrison, and noted that numerous events depicted in the movie were pure fiction. David Crosby on an album by CPR wrote and recorded a song about the movie with the lyric: "And I have seen that movie – and it wasn’t like that – he was mad and lonely – and blind as a bat.".^[66]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Jim Morrison

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Jim Morrison

• Works by or about Jim Morrison in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Jim Morrison at the Internet Movie Database
• Earliest film of Jim Morrison
• The Doors - The Crystal Ship (Music Video - 1967)
• A lost painting collaboration with Jim Morrison intended for his American Prayer Album
• George Washington High School Alumni Association, Alexandria, Va., Morrison page

Paul Verlaine
Paul Verlaine
Born	(1844-03-30)30 March 1844 Metz, France
Died	8 January 1896(1896-01-08) (aged 51) Paris, France
Occupation	Poet
Genres	Symbolist
Influences Charles Baudelaire, Charles Leconte de Lisle, Arthur Schopenhauer, Victor Hugo, Arthur Rimbaud
Influenced Maksim Bahdanovič, Arthur Rimbaud, Tom Verlaine
Signature

Paul-Marie Verlaine (French pronunciation: [vɛʁˈlɛn]; 30 March 1844 – 8 January 1896) was a French poet associated with the Symbolist movement. He is considered one of the greatest representatives of the fin de siècle in international and French poetry.

Verlaine's birthplace, Haute-Pierre street in Metz.

Biography[link]

Early life[link]

Born in Metz, he was educated at the Lycée impérial Bonaparte (now the Lycée Condorcet) in Paris and then took up a post in the civil service. He began writing poetry at an early age, and was initially influenced by the Parnassien movement and its leader, Leconte de Lisle. Verlaine's first published poem was published in 1863 in La Revue du progrès, a publication founded by poet Louis-Xavier de Ricard. Verlaine was a frequenter of the salon of the Marquise de Ricard^[1] (Louis-Xavier de Ricard's mother) at 10 Boulevard des Batignolles and other social venues, where he rubbed shoulders with prominent artistic figures of the day: Anatole France; Emmanuel Chabrier; inventor-poet and humorist Charles Cros; the cynical anti-bourgeois idealist Villiers de l'Isle-Adam; Theodore de Banville; François Coppée; Jose-Maria de Heredia; Leconte de Lisle; Catulle Mendes, and others. Verlaine's first published collection, Poèmes saturniens (1866),^[2] though adversely commented upon by Sainte-Beuve, established him as a poet of promise and originality.

Marriage and military service[link]

Verlaine's private life spills over into his work, beginning with his love for Mathilde Mauté de Fleurville. Mauté became Verlaine's wife in 1870. At the proclamation of the Third Republic in the same year, Verlaine joined the 160th battalion of the Garde nationale, turning Communard on 18 March 1871.

He became head of the press bureau of the Central Committee of the Paris Commune. Verlaine escaped the deadly street fighting known as the Bloody Week, or Semaine Sanglante, and went into hiding in the Pas-de-Calais.

Relationships with Rimbaud and Létinois[link]

Plaque in Brussels

Paul Verlaine during his career.

Verlaine returned to Paris in August 1871, and, in September, he received the first letter from Arthur Rimbaud. By 1872, he had lost interest in Mathilde, and effectively abandoned her and their son, preferring the company of his new lover.^[2] Rimbaud and Verlaine's stormy affair took them to London in 1872. In July 1873 in a drunken, jealous rage, he fired two shots with a pistol at Rimbaud, wounding his left wrist, though not seriously injuring the poet. As an indirect result of this incident, Verlaine was arrested and imprisoned at Mons, where he underwent a conversion to Roman Catholicism, which again influenced his work and provoked Rimbaud's sharp criticism.

The poems collected in Romances sans paroles (1874) were written between 1872 and 1873, inspired by Verlaine's nostalgically colored recollections of his life with Mathilde on the one hand and impressionistic sketches of his on-again off-again year-long escapade with Rimbaud on the other. Romances sans paroles was published while Verlaine was imprisoned. Following his release from prison, Verlaine again traveled to England, where he worked for some years as a teacher, teaching French, Latin and Greek and drawing at a grammar school in Stickney in Lincolnshire.^[3] From there he went to teach in Boston, before moving to Bournemouth.^[4] While in England he produced another successful collection, Sagesse. He returned to France in 1877 and, while teaching English at a school in Rethel, fell in love with one of his pupils, Lucien Létinois, who inspired Verlaine to write further poems. Verlaine was devastated when Létinois died of typhus in 1883.

Final years[link]

Verlaine's last years saw his descent into drug addiction, alcoholism, and poverty. He lived in slums and public hospitals, and spent his days drinking absinthe in Paris cafes. Fortunately, the French people's love of the arts was able to resurrect support and bring in an income for Verlaine: his early poetry was rediscovered, his lifestyle and strange behavior in front of crowds attracted admiration, and in 1894 he was elected France's "Prince of Poets" by his peers.

His poetry was admired and recognized as ground-breaking, and served as a source of inspiration to composers. Gabriel Fauré composed many mélodies, such as the song cycles Cinq mélodies "de Venise" and La bonne chanson, which were settings of Verlaine's poems.^[5] Claude Debussy set to music Clair de lune and six of the Fêtes galantes poems, forming part of the mélodie collection known as the Recueil Vasnier,^[6] and the Belgian-British composer Poldowski (daughter of Henryk Wieniawski) set 21 of Verlaine's poems.

His drug dependence and alcoholism caught up with him and took a toll on his life. Paul Verlaine died in Paris at the age of 51 on 8 January 1896; he was buried in the Cimetière des Batignolles (he was first buried in the 20th division, but his grave was moved to the 11th division - on the round about, a much better location - when the Boulevard Périphérique was built).

Style[link]

Verlaine drinking absinthe in the Café François 1er in 1892, photographed by Paul Marsan Dornac

Much of the French poetry produced during the fin de siècle was characterized as "decadent" for its lurid content or moral vision. In a similar vein, Verlaine used the expression poète maudit ("cursed poet") in 1884 to refer to a number of poets like Stéphane Mallarmé and Arthur Rimbaud who had fought against poetic conventions and suffered social rebuke or were ignored by the critics. But with the publication of Jean Moréas' Symbolist Manifesto in 1886, it was the term symbolism which was most often applied to the new literary environment. Along with Verlaine, Mallarmé, Rimbaud, Paul Valéry, Albert Samain and many others began to be referred to as "Symbolists". These poets would often share themes that parallel Schopenhauer's aesthetics and notions of will, fatality and unconscious forces, and used themes of sex (such as prostitutes), the city, irrational phenomena (delirium, dreams, narcotics, alcohol), and sometimes a vaguely medieval setting.

In poetry, the symbolist procedure—as typified by Verlaine—was to use subtle suggestion instead of precise statement (rhetoric was banned) and to evoke moods and feelings through the magic of words and repeated sounds and the cadence of verse (musicality) and metrical innovation.

Portrayals[link]

Numerous artists painted Verlaine's portrait. Among the most illustrious were Henri Fantin-Latour, Antonio de la Gándara, Eugène Carrière, Gustave Courbet, Frédéric Cazalis, and Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen.

• 

  by Gustave Courbet
  Between 1844-1877
• 

  by Eugène Carrière
  1890
• 

  by Edmond Aman-Jean
  1892
• 

  by Edouard Chantalat
  1898
  Posthumous,
  from a photograph.

In popular culture[link]

In preparation for Operation Overlord, the BBC had signaled to the French Resistance that the opening lines of the 1866 Verlaine poem "Chanson d'Automne" were to indicate the start of D-Day operations. The first three lines of the poem,

"Les sanglots longs

Des violons

De l'automne"

("Long sobs of autumn violins"), meant that Operation Overlord was to start within two weeks. These lines were broadcast on 1 June 1944. The next set of lines, "Blessent mon coeur / d'une langueur / monotone" ("wound my heart with a monotonous languor"), meant that it would start within 48 hours and that the resistance should begin sabotage operations especially on the French railroad system; these lines were broadcast on 5 June at 23:15.^[7][8][9]

Among the admirers of Verlaine's work was the Russian language poet and novelist Boris Pasternak. Pasternak went so far as to translate much of Verlaine's verse into Russian. According to Pasternak's mistress and muse, Olga Ivinskaya,

Whenever [Boris Leonidovich] was provided with literal versions of things which echoed his own thoughts or feelings, it made all the difference and he worked feverishly, turning them into masterpieces. I remember his translating Paul Verlaine in a burst of enthusiasm like this -- L'Art poétique was after all an expression of his own beliefs about poetry.^[10]

In 1964, French singer Léo Ferré set to music fourteen poems from Verlaine (Écoutez la chanson bien douce, Il patinait merveilleusement, Mon rêve familier, Soleils couchants, L'espoir luit (...), Art poétique, Pensionnaires, Âme, te souvient-il ?, Chanson d'automne, Green, Je vous vois encor, Ô triste, triste était mon âme, Clair de lune, Sérénade) along with Arthur Rimbaud in his album Léo Ferré chante Verlaine et Rimbaud. He also sang two other poems (Colloque sentimental, Si tu ne mourus pas) in his album On n'est pas sérieux quand on a 17 ans (1987). Since then other French singers regularly sing these "songs".

The time Verlaine and Rimbaud spent together was the subject of the 1995 film Total Eclipse, directed by Agnieszka Holland and with a screenplay by Christopher Hampton, based on his play. Verlaine was portrayed by David Thewlis and Leonardo DiCaprio played Rimbaud.

Bob Dylan, in his 1975 song "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go," sings,

"Situations have ended sad

Relationships have all been bad

Mine have been like Verlaine's and Rimbaud."

The New Zealand band The Verlaines are named for Paul Verlaine. Their most notable song "Death and the Maiden" features in its lyrics Paul Verlaine, the shooting of Rimbaud, and repeats the word "Verlaine" numerous times. The song "Death and the Maiden" has also been covered by Steve Malkmus.

Works[link]

Verlaine's Complete Works are available in critical editions from the Bibliothèque de la Pléiade.

Poetry portal

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Paul Verlaine

French Wikisource has original text related to this article: Paul Verlaine

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Paul Verlaine

• Paul Verlaine at Find a Grave
• Works of Paul Verlaine at Project Gutenberg
• Free scores of works by Paul Verlaine in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)
• (French) Works by Paul Verlaine at Webnet
• (French) Works by Paul Verlaine in PDF at Livres et Ebooks
• (English) Resignation and Other Poems at New Translations
• La Nouvelle Décadence - Extensive online library of Verlaine translations and biographies
• Four poems by Verlaine, translated by Norman R. Shapiro, with original French texts

Jasper Johns, Jr. (born May 15, 1930) is an American contemporary artist who works primarily in painting and printmaking.

Life[link]

Born in Augusta, Georgia, Jasper Johns spent his early life in Allendale, South Carolina with his paternal grandparents after his parents' marriage failed. He then spent a year living with his mother in Columbia, South Carolina and thereafter he spent several years living with his aunt Gladys in Lake Murray, South Carolina, twenty-two miles from Columbia. He completed high school in Sumter, South Carolina, where he once again lived with his mother.^[1] Recounting this period in his life, he says, "In the place where I was a child, there were no artists and there was no art, so I really didn't know what that meant. I think I thought it meant that I would be in a situation different than the one that I was in." He began drawing when he was three and has continued doing art ever since.^[2]

Johns studied at the University of South Carolina from 1947 to 1948, a total of three semesters.^[3] He then moved to New York City and studied briefly at the Parsons School of Design in 1949.^[3] In 1952 and 1953 he was stationed in Sendai, Japan during the Korean War.^[3]

In 1954, after returning to New York, Johns met Robert Rauschenberg and they became long term lovers.^[4][5][6] In the same period he was strongly influenced by the gay couple Merce Cunningham (a choreographer) and John Cage (a composer).^[7][8] Working together they explored the contemporary art scene, and began developing their ideas on art. In 1958, gallery owner Leo Castelli discovered Johns while visiting Rauschenberg's studio.^[3] Castelli gave him his first solo show. It was here that Alfred Barr, the founding director of New York's Museum of Modern Art, purchased four works from his exhibition.^[2] In 1963, Johns and Cage founded Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts, now known as Foundation for Contemporary Arts in New York City.

Johns currently lives in Sharon, Connecticut and the Island of Saint Martin.^[9] He first began visiting St. Martin in the late 1960s and bought the property here in 1972. The architect Philip Johnson is the principal designer of his home, a long, white, rectangular structure divided into three distinct sections.^[10]

Work[link]

Johns is best known for his painting Flag (1954–55), which he painted after having a dream of the American flag. His work is often described as a Neo-Dadaist, as opposed to pop art, even though his subject matter often includes images and objects from popular culture.^{[citation needed]} Still, many compilations on pop art include Jasper Johns as a pop artist because of his artistic use of classical iconography.

Early works were composed using simple schema such as flags, maps, targets, letters and numbers. Johns' treatment of the surface is often lush and painterly; he is famous for incorporating such media as encaustic and plaster relief in his paintings. Johns played with and presented opposites, contradictions, paradoxes, and ironies, much like Marcel Duchamp (who was associated with the Dada movement). Johns also produces intaglio prints, sculptures and lithographs with similar motifs.

Johns' breakthrough move, which was to inform much later work by others, was to appropriate popular iconography for painting, thus allowing a set of familiar associations to answer the need for subject. Though the Abstract Expressionists disdained subject matter, it could be argued that in the end, they had simply changed subjects. Johns neutralized the subject, so that something like a pure painted surface could declare itself. For twenty years after Johns painted Flag, the surface could suffice – for example, in Andy Warhol's silkscreens, or in Robert Irwin's illuminated ambient works.

Abstract Expressionist figures like Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning subscribed to the concept of a macho "artist hero," and their paintings are indexical in that they stand effectively as a signature on canvas. In contrast, Neo-Dadaists like Johns and Rauschenberg seemed preoccupied with a lessening of the reliance of their art on indexical qualities, seeking instead to create meaning solely through the use of conventional symbols. Some have interpreted this as a rejection of the hallowed individualism of the Abstract Expressionists. Their works also imply symbols existing outside of any referential context. Johns' Flag, for instance, is primarily a visual object, divorced from its symbolic connotations and reduced to something in-itself.

Prints[link]

Since 1960 Johns has worked closely with Universal Limited Art Editions, Inc (ULAE) in a variety of printmaking techniques to investigate and develop existing compositions.^[11] Initially, lithography suited Johns and enabled him to create print versions of iconic depiction of flags, maps, and targets that filled his paintings. In 1971, Johns became the first artist at ULAE to use the handfed offset lithographic press, resulting in Decoy - an image realized in printmaking before it was made in drawing or painting. However, apart from the Lead Reliefs series of 1969, he has concentrated his efforts on lithography at Gemini G.E.L.^[12] In 1976, Johns partnered with writer Samuel Beckett to create Foirades/Fizzles; the book includes 33 etchings, which revisit an earlier work by Johns and five text fragments by Beckett. He has also worked with Atelier Crommelynck in Paris, in association with Petersburg Press of London and New York; and Simca Print Artists in New York.^[13]

Commissions[link]

In 1946, architect Philip Johnson, a friend, commissioned Johns to make a piece for what is now the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center.^[14] After presiding over the theatre’s lobby for 35 years, Numbers (1964), an enormous 9-foot-by-7-foot grid of numerals, was supposed to be sold by the center for a reported $15m. Art historians consider Numbers a historically important work in part because it is the largest of the artist's numbers motifs and the only one where each unit is on a separate stretcher, fashioned from a material called Sculpmetal, which was chosen by the artist for its durability.^[15] Responding to widespread criticism, the board of Lincoln Center had to drop its selling plans.^[16]

Collections[link]

In 1998, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York bought Johns' White Flag. While the Met would not disclose how much was paid, "experts estimate [the painting's] value at more than $20 million."^[17] The National Gallery of Art acquired about 1,700 of Johns' proofs in 2007. This made the Gallery home to the largest number of Johns' works held by a single institution. The exhibition showed works from many points in Johns' career, including recent proofs of his prints. ^[18] The Greenville County Museum of Art in Greenville, South Carolina, has several of his pieces in their permanent collection.

Recognition[link]

Johns was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1984.^[19] In 1990, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts. On February 15, 2011 he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama, becoming the first painter or sculptor to receive a Presidential Medal of Freedom since Alexander Calder in 1977.

Art market[link]

Since the 1980s, Johns produces paintings at four to five a year, sometimes not at all during a year. His large scale paintings are much favored by collectors and because of their rarity, it is known that Johns' works are extremely difficult to acquire. His works from the mid to late 1950s, typically viewed as his period of rebellion against Abstract Expressionism, remain his most sought after.^[20] Skate’s Art Market Research (Skate Press, Ltd.), a New York based advisory firm servicing private and institutional investors in the art market, has ranked Jasper Johns as the 30th most valuable artist.^[21] The firm’s index of the 1,000 most valuable works of art sold at auction – Skate’s Top 1000 – contains 7 works by Johns.

Already in 1980 the Whitney Museum of American Art spent $1 million for Three Flags (1958), then the highest price ever paid for the work of a living artist.^[22] In 2006, private collectors Anne and Kenneth Griffin (founder of the Chicago-based hedge fund Citadel LLC) bought Johns' False Start (1959) from David Geffen^[23] for $80 million, making it the most expensive painting by a living artist.^[24]

Between 1957 and 1999, Johns had sold his work through Leo Castelli.^[25] Since 2000, he has been represented by the Matthew Marks Gallery in New York City, and in the spring 2008, a ten-year retrospective of Johns' drawings was mounted there.

Other work[link]

In popular culture[link]

• In "Mom and Pop Art", a 1999 episode of the animated television series The Simpsons, Johns guest stars as himself.

References[link]

Notes

Bibliography

• Busch, Julia M., A Decade of Sculpture: the New Media in the 1960s (The Art Alliance Press: Philadelphia; Associated University Presses: London, 1974) ISBN 0-87982-007-1

Further reading

• Bernstein, Roberta. Jasper Johns' Paintings and Sculptures, 1954–1974: "The Changing Focus of the Eye.". Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1985.
• Bernstein, Roberta; Tone, Lilian; Johns, Jasper and Varnedoe, Kirk. Jasper Johns: A Retrospective, The Museum of Modern Art, 2006.
• Castleman, Riva. Japser Johns: A Print Retrospetive. The Museum of Modern Art 1986.
• Crichton, Michael. Jasper Johns, Whitney/Abrams, 1977 (out of print).
• Johns, Jasper; Varnedoe, Kirk; Hollevoet, Christel; and Frank, Robert. Jasper Johns: Writings, Sketchbook Notes, Interviews, The Museum of Modern Art, 2002 (out of print).
• Kozloff, Max. Jasper Johns, Abrams, 1972. (out of print)
• Krauss, Rosalind E. and Knight, Christopher. "Split decisions: Jasper Johns in retrospect" Artforum, September 1996. Findarticles.com
• Orton, Fred. Figuring Jasper Johns, Reaktion Books, 1994.
• Pearlman, Debra. Where Is Jasper Johns? (Adventures in Art), Prestel Publishing, 2006.
• Rosenberg, Harold. "Jasper Johns: Things the Mind Already Knows". Vogue, 1964.
• Shapiro, David. Jasper Johns Drawings 1954-1984. Abrams 1984 (out of print).
• Steinberg, Leo. Jasper Johns. New York: George Wittenborn, 1963.
• Tomkins, Calvin. Off the Wall: Robert Rauschenberg and the Artworld of our time. Doubleday. 1980.
• Weiss, Jeffrey. Jasper Johns: An Allegory of Painting, 1955-1965, Yale University Press, 2007.
• Yau, John. A Thing Among Things: The Art of Jasper Johns, D.A.P./Distributed Art Publishers, 2008.

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Jasper Johns

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Jasper Johns

• Jasper Johns in the National Gallery of Australia's Kenneth Tyler collection
• Jasper Johns artwork at Brooke Alexander Gallery
• Jasper Johns at the Matthew Marks Gallery
• "The work of Jasper Johns at the National Gallery" Curator Jeffery Weiss discusses the Johns exhibition at the National Gallery. Charlie Rose show April 2007.
• VAGA – To clear rights to reproduce works by Johns
• Jasper Johns: An Allegory of Painting, 1955–1965, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
• States and Variations: Prints by Jasper Johns at the National Gallery of Art
• Jasper Johns (born 1930) Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art
• Jasper Johns at the Museum of Modern Art
• Jasper Johns bio at artchive.com
• Flag at the Museum of Modern Art
• White Flag at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
• Lifetime Honors – National Medal of Arts

Ilya Kaminsky (born April 18, 1977 in Odessa, Soviet Union, now Ukraine) is a Jewish-American poet, critic, translator and professor. He began to write poetry seriously as a teenager in Odessa, publishing a chapbook in Russian entitled The Blessed City.^[1] His first published poetry collection in English was a chapbook, Musica Humana (Chapiteau Press, 2002). His second collection in English, Dancing in Odessa (Tupelo Press, 2004), earned him a 2005 Whiting Writers' Award, the American Academy of Arts and Letters Metcalf Award, the Ruth Lilly Fellowship, and the Dorset Prize, and was named the 2005 ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year in Poetry. In 2008, he was awarded a Lannan Literary Fellowship.^[2] His poems have appeared in literary journals and magazines including The Kenyon Review,^[3] New Republic, Harvard Review, Poetry.^[4]

Dancing in Odessa and its chapbook forbear, Musica Humana, have earned Kaminsky superlative praise from reviewers and prominent poets. The Philadelphia Enquirer wrote, "Like Joseph Brodsky before him, Kaminsky is a terrifyingly good poet, another poet from the former U.S.S.R. who, having adopted English, has come to put us native speakers to shame."^[5] Jane Hirschfield wrote, "Inventiveness of language, the investigative passion, praises, lamentation, and a proper sense of the ridiculous are omnipresent. Kaminsky’s poems are wholly local yet unprovincial, intimate yet free of ego. This first full-length book is a breathtaking debut."^[6] Carolyn Forche wrote, "Kaminsky is more than a promising young poet; he is a poet of promise fulfilled. I am in awe of his gifts."^[7]

Kaminsky is particularly well known for his passionate, almost ecstatic reading style.