Les Enfants de la Bohème: The Many Isms of Bohemianism

Bohemianism is a grandmere to many "isms"  inspired by the original Bohemians of Paris . The list of “Bohemainism-isms” is long, but here are a choice few.

This is Part V of "Bohemianism," a podcast from theparisproject.net. 

This podcast was created by Roger Mummert for www.theparisproject.net.

Transcript

Les Enfants de la Bohème: 

The Many Isms of Bohemianism

Bohemianism is a grandmère to many other isms—some that embrace Bohemian values, others that passionately oppose them. The list of “Bohemainism-isms” is long, but here are a choice few.

Bouzingoism: The first era of Bohemianism—called “le Petite Cénacle”—practiced extreme romanticism. The next iteration—les Bouzingos—took the notion of extreme…to extremes. Their aim was to frighten the bourgeois by acting like noisy animals, barbarians, primitives. They hosted naked parties, drank wine out of human skulls and danced with the fervor of the possessed. Their raucous behavior—shocking in civil modern society—influenced Dadaism and Surrealism a century later. 

Dandyism. Another early Bohemian spinoff was Dandyism—the stylized striking of an aristocratic pose. Baudelaire was a dandy. He wore luxurious clothing as a discordant expression of contempt for bourgeois luxuries. If it sounds odd and ironic, it was. And the appearance of dandies on the streets of Paris was shocking. 

Parnassianism: Parnassianism embraced art for art’s sake and rejected the political concerns and sentimentality of the Romantics. It’s leading light was Théophile Gautier, who glorified the muses of Greek mythology, whose home was Mount Parnassus, hence the name. Parnassian writers included Leconte de Lisle and José-Maria de Heredia, whose work was published in “La Parnasse contemporain." The journal had three issues, in 1866, 1869 and 1876. A leisurely (Bohemian) publication schedule.

Anti-Bohemianism: Edmond and Jules de Goncourt were writers, critics, and prime commentators on the 19th century French literary and artistic world. They despised Bohemianism with a fervor that came to be called Anti-Bohemianism. The Goncourts were an oddity, inseparable brothers who wrote together, never spent a day apart, and are buried in the same grave in Montmartre. They were sympathetic to the aristocracy and nostalgic for the ancienne regime. They lambasted the poverty and grunge of Bohemians in “le Journal de Goncourt,” which they launched in 1851 and published for decades. The Goncourts embraced naturalism in literature and chronicled the rise of Impressionism and Art Nouveau. Their novel “Manette Salomon” is based on their friend Alexandre Pouthier, a painter whom they ridiculed as having stayed too long in Bohemia. 

Cubism, Dadaism, Surrealism: These 20th century art movements all contained elements of Bohemianism in their rejection of conventions and embrace of poverty. Artists’ studios were scattered around Montparnasse, as were the cafés frequented by artists and writers. Many lived at La Ruche, a residence called the “beehive” after its circular design by Gustave Eiffel. Among those who called it home: Guillaume Apollinaire, Max Jacob, Blaise Cendrars, Max Pechstein, and 

Robert Delaunay.

The flame of Bohemianism in Paris attracted artists from around the world: Picasso from Spain, Modigliani from Italy, Man Ray from the U.S., Constantin Brancusi from Romania, Marc Chagall from Russia, and Diego Rivera from Mexico. 

The Lost Generation: Gertrude Stein applied the term “The Lost Generation” to the mostly American expatriates who filled her parlor at 27 rue de Fleurus in Montparnasse in the early 20th Century. These same Bohemia seekers filled the literary bookstores/salons of Sylvia Beach at Shakespeare and Company) and Adrienne Monnier at la Maison des Amis des Livres.

In the 1920s and 1930s, a round of Neo-Bohemians flocked to Montparnasse. Some seemed to be living an art-obsessed second childhood. Henry Miller was one; he was in his 40s, an escapee from marriage and fatherhood, when he merrily bummed around Paris in the 1930s with neither a sou in his pocket nor a care in his heart. His “Tropic of Cancer” (1934) begins: “I have no money, no resources, no hopes. I am the happiest man alive.” Textbook Bohemian! 

Yiddish Bohemians: In the 1920s, Paris saw an influx of Jewish artists and writers from Eastern Europe. They assembled in Montparnasse, speaking and writing in their mameloshen (mother tongue) of Yiddish. Gathering places: Café Daumesnil and the Triangle Press and Bookstore (6 rue Stanislas). Among those seen there were Marc Chagall, Chaim Soutine and Sholem Asch. 

Sub-isms of Bohemianism-isms: 

Lettrism, a symbol-based philosophy spun off from Dadaism.

Situationist International movement: Again a Dadaist spinoff with a Marxist critique of capitalism and a focus on the social spectacle.

Nouvelle Vague/New Wave Cinema: Godard, Rivette and Trufffault all rejected the language and narrative structures of conventional cinema the way that Bohemians rejected bourgeois values and comforts. 

All of these isms, Boho at their core. Now, here is a brief look at the spread of Bohemianism—from Paris to the world at large. 

Yankee Bohos. In New York, Bohemia had caught fire by the 1850s. The gathering place was Pfaff’s Beer Cellar in Greenwich Village: Walt Whitman quaffed a pint there. As did Henry Clapp, Jr., the “king of Bohemia” who founded the Saturday Press and helped to launch Mark Twain’s career by publishing his short story “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” in 1865. In fact, Mark Twain, Bret Harte and a few other writers had formed a Bohemian circle in San Francisco by 1863, while they waited out the Civil War far from the front lines. The Bohemian Club was founded in San Francisco in 1872, though the term was synonymous with journalists. This “gentlemen’s club” still exists, and it holds “encampments” for members (all male and most wealthy) at the Bohemian Grove in Sonoma County, north of San Francisco. 

Back to New York: Greenwich Village Bohemianism raged in the 1920s. Maxwell Bodenheim was that era’s ”King of the Greenwich Village Bohemians.” Bodenheim was a celebrated author, but he fell into drunkenness and vagrancy. In the end, he was murdered in a flophouse. New York’s Bohemian historic sites abound: the White Horse Tavern, the Cherry Lane Theatre, the Chelsea Hotel. 

In the 1940s and ‘50s, there were Greenwich Village and (in San Francisco) North Beach beatniks (Allen Ginsburg, William S. Burroughs, Jack Kerouac). The folk singers of MacDougal Street (Dave van Ronk, Bob Dylan), sipped espresso in cafes that looked Parisian right down to the tiny chairs and tables. And in the 1960s and ‘70s, Andy Warhol’s factory, with its colorful hangers on, John Giorno, Ultra Violet, Lou Reed, the Fugs, was followed by punk, CBGBs, Max’s Kansas City, and later the grunge bands of Seattle. Bohemians, all!

English Bohemians

Bohemianism took root in England, as reflected in a number of literary works. “Trilby,” an 1894 novel by George de Mourier, portrays a trio of English artists who live a Bohemian life in Paris. “Bohemia in London” was a 1907 guidebook by Arthur Ransome; it described artistic life in Chelsea, Hampstead and Soho. In 1933, George Orwell published “Down and Out in Paris and London,” describing his Bohemian days in the two cities in the 1920s. 

Mexican Bohemians

Diego Rivera studied in Paris then returned home to preach Bohemian art and politics among a circle of artists in the Coyoacan neighborhood of Mexico City. Other Bohemian artists in his circle: Frida Kahlo, Tina Modotti—and Trotsky was a comrade. Today the neighborhoods of Coyoacan, the Condessa and Roma all are described as “Bohemian,” real estate speak for colorful and gentrified, all within the Millennial travel bubble.  

Other Bohemian colonies:

Bohemianism had many other outposts around the globe:

Shanghai Bohemianism: Twenties and Thirties.

Sydney: Australian “libertarians” of the 1950s, revolutionaries of ‘60s.

Goa, India, the Beatles famously.

Phuket, Thailand: Backpacking hippies seeking Bohemia on the beach.

BoBos: Bourgeois Bohemians. This contemporary usage—an ironic oxymoron—was coined by David Brooks in “BoBos in Paradise” (2000). He defines BoBos as an elite educated class experiencing an “anxiety of abundance.” The term BoBos has international applications, but in Paris it is characterized by the well-off but socially concerned progressive, who rides a bike to a protest against the development of luxury housing that threatens a neighborhood’s true Bohemian nature.