Though a Bohemian is a native of the Czech province of Bohemia, a secondary meaning for bohemian emerged in 19th century France. The term was used to describe artists, writers, and disenchanted people of all sorts who wished to live non-traditional lifestyles.
- "The term 'bohemian' has come to be very commonly accepted in our day as the description of a certain kind of literary gipsy, no matter in what language he speaks, or what city he inhabits .... A bohemian is simply an artist or litterateur who, consciously or unconsciously, secedes from conventionality in life and in art." (Westminster Review, 1862, noted at Online Etymology Dictionary.)
The term reflects the French perception, held since the 15th century, that the gypsies had come from Bohemia. Literary bohemians were associated in the French imagination with roving gypsies, outsiders apart from conventional society and untroubled by its disapproval. The term carries a connotation of arcane enlightenment (the opposite of 'Philistines'), and also carries a less frequently intended, pejorative connotation of carelessness with personal hygiene. Bohemians were often associated with drugs and self-induced poverty.
Henri Murger's collection of short stories, Scenes de la Vie de Boheme (Scenes of Bohemian Life), published in 1845, popularized the term's usage in France. Ideas from Murger's collection formed the theme of Giacomo Puccini's opera La boheme (1896).
In English, bohemian in this sense was first popularized in William Makepeace Thackeray's novel, Vanity Fair, published in 1848. Even the Spanish gypsy in a French opera Carmen set in Seville is referred to as a bohemienne in Meilhac and Halevy's libretto (1875).
The term has become associated with various artistic or academic communities and is used as a generalized adjective describing such people, environs, or situations: bohemian' (boho - informal) is defined in The American College Dictionary as "a person with artistic or intellectual tendencies, who lives and acts with no regard for conventional rules of behavior."
Many prominent European and American literary figures of the last 150 years belonged to the bohemian counterculture, and any comprehensive 'list of bohemians' would be tediously long. Bohemianism has been approved of by some bourgeois writers such as Honore de Balzac, but most conservative cultural critics do not condone the bohemian lifestyle.
Bohemia meant any place where you could live and work cheaply, and behave unconventionally; a community of free souls far beyond the pale of respectable society. Bohemia flourished in many cities in the 19th and early 20th century — in Schwabing in Munich, Germany; Montmartre and Montparnasse in Paris, France; Greenwich Village in New York City, North Beach and later Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco, USA; and in Chelsea, Fitzrovia and Soho in London. Modern bohemias include Dali in China; Chiang Rai in Thailand; Kathmandu in Nepal; Amsterdam in the Netherlands; Prague in the Czech Republic; Uzupis in Vilnius, Lithuania and Vama Veche in Romania
The current Broadway hit Rent is set in New York City and gives a glimpse into a more recent bohemia. This show was written by Jonathan Larson and is based on La boheme. One of the feature numbers, La Vie Boheme, addresses the death of bohemia as an end to the neighborhood as a haven for these bohemians, while celebrating the ideals and history that formed this counter-culture.
Moulin Rouge
Moulin Rouge (French for "red mill") is a traditional cabaret, built in 1889 by Joseph Oller who already owned the Paris Olympia. Situated in the red-light district of Pigalle on Boulevard de Clichy in the 18th arrondissement, near Montmartre, Paris, France, it is famous for the large red imitation windmill on its roof. The Moulin Rouge is a symbol of French Culture as well as the Bohemian influence on Western Europe. The building has a rich history that is still being added to today. Over the past hundred years, the Moulin Rouge has remained a popular tourist destination for many visitors each year. Today the Moulin Rouge offers musical dance entertainment for adult visitors from around the world. Much of the romance from turn-of-the-century France is still present in the interior environment.
The design and name of Paris's Moulin Rouge has often been imitated by other night clubs worldwide.
Notable performers at the Moulin Rouge have included La Toya Jackson, La Goulue, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Yvette Guilbert, Jane Avril, Mistinguett, Le Petomane and others. The Moulin Rouge was also the subject of many paintings by post-impressionist painter Toulouse Lautrec who in turn romanticized the building.
"Moulin Rouge" was also the title of a book by Pierre La Mure. This book was the basis for the 1952 movie of the same name.
Contemporary description
Andrey Bely wrote in his 1906 letter to Alexander Blok about the Tavern of Hell at Moulin Rouge, where lackeys were dressed as devils:
Sometimes I would venture from my sepulchre to the jazz of night Paris, where having gathered the colours, I would think them over in front of the fire. I could be seen walking through a funereal corridor of my house and descending down a black spiral of steep stairs; rushing underground to Montmartre, all impatience to see the fiery rubies of the Moulin Rouge cross. I wondered thereabouts, then bought a ticket to watch frenzied delirium of feathers, vulgar painted lips and eyelashes of black and blue.
Naked feet, and thighs, and arms, and breasts were being flung on me from bloody-red foam of translucent clothes. The tuxedoed goatees and crooked noses in white vests and toppers would line the hall, with their hands posed on canes. Then I found myself in a pub, where the liqueurs were served on a coffin (not a table) by the nickering devil: "Drink it, you wretched!" Having drunk, I returned under the black sky split by the flaming vanes, which the radiant needles of my eyelashes cross-hatched. In front of my nose a stream of bowler hats and black veils was still pulsing, foamy with bluish green and warm orange of feathers worn by the night beauties: to me they were all one, as I had to narrow my eyes for insupportable radiance of electric lamps, whose hectic fires would be dancing beneath my nervous eyelids for many a night to come.
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