Overview

“Paris is the centre of the cult,” wrote Robert Hichens in Felix, his 1902 novel on the rising number of morphine addictions in Europe. In Paris, artists depicted the morphine addict numerous times, yet they disregarded the reality of France’s addiction problem: male medical professionals made up the highest proportion of people who used morphine habitually. In oil paintings, caricatures, and lithographs, artists such as Pablo Picasso, Eugène Grasset, and Théophile Steinlen almost always depicted the morphine addict as a deviant female figure. Artists sensationalized addiction to elicit shock and stand out in the crowded Parisian art market. Their artworks show influences from contemporary medical texts on addiction and artistic depictions of sex workers, lesbians, and other women deemed socially deviant. These images proliferated in French society, creating false narratives about who was or could become addicted to drugs and setting a precedent for the visualization of drug addiction. Hannah Halliwell links the feminization of addiction to broader anxieties in late nineteenth-century France – the defeat by Prussia in 1871, concerns about social decadence, a declining population, and a rising feminist movement. Art, Medicine, and Femininity presents a new understanding of the history of addiction and substance use and its intersection with art and gender.

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9780228019909

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Reviews

"‘Hannah Halliwell makes a persuasive and ultimately convincing argument for the pathologising and feminisation of addiction through a compelling analysis of understudied works of art. I very much enjoyed reading this book.’ Kelly Ricciardi Colvin, University of Massachusetts, Boston and author of Charm Offensive: Commodifying Femininity in Postwar France ""Halliwell paints a troubling picture of doctors self-medicating and injecting vulnerable patients and artists relying on the shock value of depicting women abusing their bodies. The female figure emerges as a double victim of morphine and the feminization of morphine. Highly recommended."" Choice"

‘Hannah Halliwell makes a persuasive and ultimately convincing argument for the pathologising and feminisation of addiction through a compelling analysis of understudied works of art. I very much enjoyed reading this book.’ Kelly Ricciardi Colvin, University of Massachusetts, Boston and author of Charm Offensive: Commodifying Femininity in Postwar France

‘Hannah Halliwell makes a persuasive and ultimately convincing argument for the pathologising and feminisation of addiction through a compelling analysis of understudied works of art. I very much enjoyed reading this book.’ Kelly Ricciardi Colvin, University of Massachusetts, Boston and author of Charm Offensive: Commodifying Femininity in Postwar France ""Halliwell paints a troubling picture of doctors self-medicating and injecting vulnerable patients and artists relying on the shock value of depicting women abusing their bodies. The female figure emerges as a double victim of morphine and the feminization of morphine. Highly recommended."" Choice ""The depth of the insightful analysis throughout the book provides a valuable and enriching experience for the reader. The brilliant research will inspire more scholars to follow Halliwell's lead in exploring similar areas and will resonate with a wide range of disciplines, including social history, cultural history, art history and medical humanities. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in addictive substances, French studies of art, medicine, femininity, art history and more."" French History

‘Hannah Halliwell makes a persuasive and ultimately convincing argument for the pathologising and feminisation of addiction through a compelling analysis of understudied works of art. I very much enjoyed reading this book.’ Kelly Ricciardi Colvin, University of Massachusetts, Boston and author of Charm Offensive: Commodifying Femininity in Postwar France ""Halliwell paints a troubling picture of doctors self-medicating and injecting vulnerable patients and artists relying on the shock value of depicting women abusing their bodies. The female figure emerges as a double victim of morphine and the feminization of morphine. Highly recommended."" Choice ""The depth of the insightful analysis throughout the book provides a valuable and enriching experience for the reader. The brilliant research will inspire more scholars to follow Halliwell's lead in exploring similar areas and will resonate with a wide range of disciplines, including social history, cultural history, art history and medical humanities. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in addictive substances, French studies of art, medicine, femininity, art history and more."" French History ""Halliwell cogently argues that the female morphinomane and her 'danger' to society were constructed through art and through visual, popular, and medical cultures. Art, Medicine, and Femininity proves, with many examples, that the cultural image of the morphine addict was fashioned by artists."" H-Sci-Med-Tech

"‘Hannah Halliwell makes a persuasive and ultimately convincing argument for the pathologising and feminisation of addiction through a compelling analysis of understudied works of art. I very much enjoyed reading this book.’ Kelly Ricciardi Colvin, University of Massachusetts, Boston and author of Charm Offensive: Commodifying Femininity in Postwar France ""Halliwell paints a troubling picture of doctors self-medicating and injecting vulnerable patients and artists relying on the shock value of depicting women abusing their bodies. The female figure emerges as a double victim of morphine and the feminization of morphine. Highly recommended."" Choice ""The depth of the insightful analysis throughout the book provides a valuable and enriching experience for the reader. The brilliant research will inspire more scholars to follow Halliwell's lead in exploring similar areas and will resonate with a wide range of disciplines, including social history, cultural history, art history and medical humanities. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in addictive substances, French studies of art, medicine, femininity, art history and more."" French History"

Author Information

Hannah Halliwell is a lecturer in Nineteenth-Century French Art History at the University of Edinburgh.

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