Product Description

Since the early nineteenth century, the bohemian has been the hero of the story the West has wanted to hear about its artists: a story of genius, glamour and doom. The bohemian is variously the artist dying in poverty like Chatterton or Modigliani, a successful self-destroyer like Jackson Pollock, or a celebrity like Nina Hamnett. Elizabeth Wilson s remakable, enjoyable 'Bohemians' is a quest for the many shifting meanings that constitute bohemianism.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #285620 in Books
• Published on: 2009-02-28
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

Review
'Her intellectual enthusiam, ironic humour and delight in bohemian absurdity make this a fascinating book to read.' --Sheila Rowbotham, Financial Times

'...a book that is intricately informative, expertly researched and highly entertaining.' --Literary Review

From the Back Cover
Since the early nineteenth century, the Bohemian has been the hero of the story the West has wanted to hear about its artists: a story of genius, glamour and doom. He is variously the artist dying in poverty like Chatterton or Modigliani, a successful self-destroyer like Jackson Pollock, a celebrity like Augustus John. Elizabeth Wilson's remarkable, enjoyable Bohemians is a quest for the many shifting meanings that constitute bohemianism.

Wilson tells the best of stories with a huge cast of characters among the artists, intellectuals, radicals and hangers-on who populated the salons, bars and cafes of Paris, London, New York and West Coast America. She follows the women who contributed to the myth - the wives and mistresses, muses, lesbians and independent artists. She explores the Bohemians' eccentric use of dress, the role of sex and erotic love, their search for excess and their intransigent politics. She further shows how, instead of disappearing, Bohemia is at the core of the most heated cultural debates at the start of the new millennium.

'Vagabonds, discharged soldiers, discharged jailbirds, escaped galley slaves, swindlers, mountebanks, pickpockets, tricksters, gamblers, procurers, brothel keepers, porters, literati, organ-grinders, rag-pickers, knife grinders, tinkers, beggars - in short, the whole indefinite, disintegrated mass, thrown hither and thither, which the French term la boheme.' Karl Marx, 1848

'The mania of young artists to wish to live outside their time, with other ideas and other customs, isolates them from the world, renders them strange and bizarre, puts them outside the law, banished from sociey; these are today's bohemians.' Felix Pyat, 1834

About the Author
Elizabeth Wilson is a writer, researcher and lecturer in the fields of cultural history and fashion. She is Emeritus Professor at London Metropolitan University and also teaches at the Architectural Association, the London Institute and Goldsmiths College, University of London. Her books include Adorned in Dreams, Hallucinations: Life in the Post-modern City and The Sphinx in the City.

Customer Reviews

Interesting but too brief!
Some interesting insights (for example, into the ambiguous relationship between Bohemians and bourgeoisie) scattered among a series of too-brief sketches of bohemian life. Covers a lot of cultural ground, from the early 17th Century to the 1960s, but would probably be enjoyed more if you know more about those eras than I do.