Drinking and Dining with Toulouse Lautrec

Portrait of Toulouse-Lautrec by Edouard Vuillard (Wikipedia)

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864–1901) was a dedicated drinker, especially of absinthe. He was also a dedicated cook and lover of food, and wrote a cookbook which was published some time after his death. Unfortunately, he had overdone the drinking and died young and alcoholic, after a rather sad life in the glamorous world of Paris: the cafes, bars, and dance halls of Montmartre. 

I suspect that everyone recognizes Toulouse-Lautrec's breathtaking depictions of the famous dancers and their fans! His legacy included an astonishing number of remarkable paintings, posters, and other art works, as well as the cookbook reflecting the cuisine of his time. I was looking through my cookbooks, especially the ones by artists, and took another look at this one.

 

Toulouse-Lautrec and Maurice Joyant, The Art of Cuisine.

One of the many illustrations from The Art of Cuisine

Could I cook from Toulouse-Lautrec's book?

Toulouse-Lautrec was a wealthy man, a member of the aristocracy. His cuisine reflected his social position, maybe more than it reflected is life in the artistic circles of Paris. His recipes and menus contrast to the way we eat now; for example, he recommended two courses for each dinner while our custom would be to have just one. 

A sample menu:

• Veal cutlets on endive
• Pâté of duck from the Somme in a crust
• A selection of vegetables, salads, fruits, and perhaps desserts as well. (p. 160)

Many of the recipes in the cookbook are quite tempting, but I see many challenges, starting with the cost and availability of some ingredients. Veal, for example, isn't affordable and mostly has disappeared from contemporary markets because of ethical objections to the way it's raised. In contrast, chicken is relatively cheaper now, but because of mass production, it's very tender and probably lacks the flavor that would have been expected in the past. As a result, the long cooking times and flavor expectations of that era would no longer be appropriate. Beef today is also much more tender, and pork now is much leaner. So beware of those recipes!

In the fish markets of Paris in that era one would have been able to purchase fresh ocean fish and freshwater fish that aren't so easy to find nowadays. Some aren't really obtainable at all, having been fished to near-extinction, and many others are very expensive. In my region, far from the ocean, fish are not as fresh as they need to be for these recipes -- including some that start with a live fish that's not killed til you are ready to cook it. I think there are a few fish recipes that would still be workable, though.

Toulouse-Lautrec's vegetable recipes sound much more appropriate for a modern kitchen. One very fascinating difference is in his recipe for onion soup: for his version, you make concentrated onion broth, which you strain and then pour over layers of bread and gruyere cheese. It might be fun to try that! Some of the vegetable classics are nearly identical to the way I learned them, such as the recipe for the famous potato casserole, Gratin Dauphinoise.

Many recipes for game animals and game birds sound interesting and impossible. Here are a few beginnings of these recipes:

• "Having killed some September snipe, eat them quite fresh when you come back from the shoot." (p. 78)
• "Having killed some gray herons, pluck them, skin them,..." (p. 85)
• "Take an old partridge and at least two tender young partridges..." (p. 85)
• "Take six to twelve thrushes." (p. 81)
• "A large wild boar of three hundred pounds having been killed, cut off a leg weighing nineteen pounds, leave it out for three days in the winter air..." (p. 88)

I'm thinking about whether I can try any of the recipes in the book. There are a few that seem plausible. 

Toulouse-Lautrec and his absinthe world: beautiful and tragic

Toulouse-Lautrec with his friend Lucién Metivet drinking absinthe (1885)

An absinthe drinker.

"Absinthe Bar"

"Divan Japonais," a poster by Toulouse-Lautrec.

Review © 2023 mae sander

Absinthe Drinkers in Art: “The Green Fairy”

The Absinthe Drinker, 1901, Pablo Picasso (1881-1973).
Hermitage Museum Russia (Wikipedia)

From Manet's
Absinthe Drinker

Known as “the green fairy,” absinthe was served in cafes in the Bohemian parts of Paris and many other cities, and consumed by all the artistic types who flocked there. Paintings of absinthe drinkers by numerous famous artists in the late 19th and early 20th century are fascinating. Quite a few of these artists were themselves fond of drinking the distinctive green beverage, which tasted of anise and a number of other herbs, especially wormwood -- and had a very high alcohol content.

Absinthe was invented in the 18th century as a medicinal beverage, and grew in popularity until its high point in the pre-World War I era. It was loved by both the successful people and the failures. 

Café Table with Absinthe, 1887, Vincent van Gogh
(1853-1890), Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.

In Van Gogh's painting you can see the color of the drink. And maybe how delicious and cool it looked! Van Gogh was a dedicated absinthe drinker, like many artists including his friend Toulouse Lautrec, who sketched Van Gogh and many others in Paris cafés. I wrote more about Van Gogh and his choices of food and drink here.

Monsieur Boileau au Café, 1893.
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901)

The Absinthe Drinkers 1881, by Jean-François Raffaëlli (1850–1924).

Raffaëli was a French realist painter who associated with the Impressionists.  This work is a recent acquisition by the DeYong Museum in San Francisco (link).

Absinthe drinkers, 1908, Jean Béraud (French, 1849-1936)

Léon Spilliaert, The Absinthe Drinker, 1907.

Léon Spilliaert was a Belgian symbolist painter (1881-1946). He “was a fan of the fabled absinthe drinker Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. But if ever an artwork could put you off the green fairy, this is it.” (The Guardian, “Léon Spilliaert’s The Absinthe Drinker: an eldritch cautionary tale”)

 

The Absinthe Drinkers, 1890, Edvard Munch (Norwegian, 1863-1944)

The oldest bar in New Orleans, founded in the early 19th century, is called "The Old Absinthe House."

Absinthe also had a role in literature. A famous essay on absinthe was written in 1918 in New Orleans by Aleister Crowley: "Absinthe: The Green Goddess." It begins:

"Keep always this dim corner for me, that I may sit while the Green Hour glides, a proud pavane of Time. For I am no longer in the city accursed, where Time is horsed on the white gelding Death, his spurs rusted with blood.
"There is a corner of the United States which he has overlooked. It lies in New Orleans, between Canal Street and Esplanade Avenue; the Mississippi for its base. ...
"Here, too are marble basins hollowed – and hallowed! – by the drippings of the water which creates by baptism the new spirit of absinthe.
"I am only sipping the second glass of that 'fascinating, but subtle poison, whose ravages eat men’s heart and brain' that I have ever tasted in my life; and as I am not an American anxious for quick action, I am not surprised and disappointed that I do not drop dead upon the spot. But I can taste souls without the aid of absinthe; and besides, this is magic of absinthe! The spirit of the house has entered into it; it is an elixir, the masterpiece of an old alchemist, no common wine." (source)

 

L'Absinthe, 1876. Edgar Degas (1834-1917)

Perhaps the most famous absinthe art work.

As its popularity grew, absinthe was considered both highly addictive and highly dangerous, believed to cause hallucinations, madness, and even murder. It was banned in Europe from around 1910-2005, and in the United States from 1912-2007. Regulation of legal absinthe now limits the amount of thujone, the psychoactive substance that comes from wormwood.

The irresistible appeal and danger of absinthe is depicted in many works of art, of which I've shown just a few. I'm always interested in how specific foods and drinks have been depicted in the arts. This post will be shared with Elizabeth at Altered Book Lover and other bloggers who love to write about drinks. © 2021 mae sander for mae food dot blog spot dot com.

Van Gogh: from Bread Crusts to French Cuisine

Van Gogh's Table: At the Auberge Ravoux provides a fascinating study of Vincent Van Gogh's developing relationship to food and how it was reflected in his art. The biographical chapter of Van Gogh's Table is by Fred Leeman, a former director of the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam. A chapter by Julia R. Galosy documents the post-Van Gogh history of the Auberge Ravoux, in Auvers, France, where Van Gogh boarded and painted at the end of his life. In addition, a chapter of food history and recipes by Alexandra Leaf demonstrates three types of French food that Van Gogh may have eaten: popular cuisine, bourgeois cuisine, and country cuisine from locally sourced ingredients.

Leeman's biography begins with a description of Van Gogh's early life, when he aspired to paint and also to be a Christian preacher like his father. As a young man, Van Gogh lived with poor people in his native Holland, and ministered to them as well as sketching or painting their lives. "The Potato Eaters" thus reflects not only his emerging artistic vision, but also his belief that bread -- that is, very simple peasant food -- was an appropriate diet for a person of his spiritual and religious temperament. His letters from this time express his views, documenting that he often lived on crusts of dry bread, coffee (which the peasants in the painting are also drinking) and little else, often going for long times between enjoying warm meals.

Van Gogh: "The Potato Eaters"

Later, Van Gogh lived in the south of France and ultimately in Auvers, a village just outside Paris, where he died. His emergence as a mature and innovative artist during this time is well-known, as he invented his characteristic use of color, light, and human hands and faces. For example, the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam, which I visited last summer, is currently organized around his biographical and artistic development.

Toulouse-Lautrec: "Portrait of Vincent Van Gogh
in the Cafe du Tambourin", Paris, 1887.
Van Gogh appears to have a glass of absinthe.

Van Gogh: "A Table in Front of a Window
with a Glass of Absinthe," Paris, 1887

As Van Gogh encountered French artists and French culture, he also became familiar with a variety of foods in cafes and various types of restaurants frequented by his fellow artists -- meals there frequently consisted of meat dishes, bread, vegetables, cheese, and simple desserts. Van Gogh's Table has reproductions of a large number of paintings in which he depicted cafes, restaurants, diners, and other food imagery. In Auvers, Van Gogh lived in the Auberge Ravoux where he paid 3.5 francs per day for room and board. He feared that his earlier abstention from all but a minimum of food had harmed his health -- which also had suffered from his increasing consumption of wine, absinthe, and copious quantities of coffee.

Dr. Gachet, whose face is familiar from Van Gogh's portrait of him (above), played a large role in the last months of the painter's life when Van Gogh lived in the Auberge Ravoux. The chapter titled "Sunday Lunches with Dr. Gachet" by Leaf is especially informative. Van Gogh was a patient of Dr. Gachet, but also engaged in a warm relationship with the doctor's family, and dined at their home once or twice a week. "Feeding the painter was part of the doctor's therapy," as he presided over conversations about "art, politics, free love, and homeopathy."

One Sunday dinner in June of 1890 at Dr. Gachet's home included the doctor and his wife and son Paul, Vincent, his brother Theo Van Gogh, Theo's wife Johanna, and a Madame Chevalier. Theo and Johanna's baby was with them, though not at the table, evidently. "An atmosphere of joy generated by fine food, excellent wine, and freely flowing conversation reigned that day, as later recounted by Johanna, Paul Gachet, and Van Gogh."

Van Gogh: "Margurite Gachet in the Garden," 1890.

On another occasion a few days later, the Gachets invited Vincent to celebrate their son's 17th and daughter's 21st birthdays in their garden. Leaf's recipes for cuisine bourgeoise suggest what might have been on the menu at Dr Gachet's house: she gives recipes for asparagus with Hollandaise sauce, Fillet of Striped Bass with Panfried Leeks and Buerre Blanc, Roast Duck with Chanterelle Fricassee, and Cherry Clafouti.

The book also includes an extended history of the Auberge Ravoux itself, which was never much changed after Van Gogh's famous death there. In the 1950s and later, it was used as a set by several famous film-makers, and has become a tourist attraction for Van Gogh fans.

Van Gogh, "Bowl with Potatoes," Arles, 1888.
Contrast this to the images of the "Potato Eaters."

The link between Van Gogh's creative development and his changing views on eating makes this one of the most fascinating books about food and art that I've read.

That Van Gogh in France not only discovered color and light but also at least to some extent became aware of the taste of food, and thus reduced denying himself the enjoyment of eating is amazing! No less amazing is how productive Van Gogh was in Auvers: in 70 days there, he painted approximately 70 masterpieces, as I learned at the Van Gogh museum.

It would be fascinating to try to recreate one of the dinners documented in the recipe chapters!

Louisiana Cookbooks for Cookbook Wednesday

My favorite Louisiana cookbook is The New Orleans Cookbook by Rima and Richard Collin, first published in 1975. It begins with lists. First, ingredients -- alphabetical from Absinthe through Tabasco, Tomatoes, and Yam. Second, techniques from Boiling to Smothering. Its recipe organization is just as indicative of the unique New Orleans cuisine: Chapter 1, Gumbos and Soups; Chapter 2, Red Beans and Rice! and Jambalya; then chapters titled Crabs, Crawfish, Oysters, Shrimp, and so on until Desserts and Drinks. I've written about New Orleans and Louisiana cookbooks before, starting with this, and I've based today's post on my earlier ones. 

The New Orleans Cookbook's illustrations of historic food ads, restaurants, and menus are fascinating, and the descriptions are lushly appealing:

"The steaming aroma of fresh caught crabs, shrimp, and oysters; the smell of butter and flour browning slowly in a large iron pot over an open fire; the sizzle of freshly chopped onions, green peppers, and 'shallots' added at just the moment the flour and butter turn a rich brown; the scent of chicken or duck slowly cooking into the mixture of onions, vegetables, and roux; the taste of good fresh okra or exotic sassafras -- this adds up to a good Louisiana gumbo." (p. 15)

For simpler home cooking, people from Louisiana recommend River Road Recipes, which is published by the Junior League of Baton Rouge, LA. It's another book with staying power. The number of copies was already in the hundreds of thousands when I bought one of 20,000 copies in the forty-fourth printing (November 1976).

My copy of River Road Recipes is yellowed and marked up. First, there's a little red check-mark next to many recipes, indicating the favorites of a woman we met in Baton Rouge (the mother of my brother's college friend). She recommended, for example, the Sauce Meuniere or Remoulade Sauce (p. 119) on trout. Over the years I've tried a large number of cakes and cookies from this book, and found most of them quite nice. As in many charity collections, some of the contributors were much more skilled at cooking, baking, and recipe writing than others.

Both of these books reflect the old-style Creole, Cajun, and New Orleans traditional cooking styles. Just reading through them is a fascinating reprise of one of our rapid trips into the city, when I seem to recall we ate three large meals between noon and evening, because our host wanted us to sample everything we possibly could. The dish that most impressed me was the bread pudding with rum sauce at a little home-style restaurant a bit away from the tourist area, but I've never had another bread pudding that delicious again.

Evelyn's Gumbo from Tiana's Cookbook: 
Evelyn says the recipes are good & amazingly easy to follow!

Another New Orleans cookbook in my collection is a spin-off of Disney's film "The Princess and the Frog." 

Tiana's Cookbook: Recipes for Kids, includes quite a few serious recipes that kids may like to eat, but it takes a grownup to really cook them. Tiana's two most special dishes: beignets, which are deep-fried and gumbo.

There are also some very Disney things such as cupcakes frosted to look like frogs and a cake made in the shape of an alligator, which aren't precisely New Orleans cooking, more like Disney movie cooking. I wrote about the movie here: What do princesses eat?


Tiana's Cookbook includes versions of several recipes from another New Orleans classic: The Dooky Chase Cookbook which documents the life and recipes of Leah Chase, owner of the Dooky Chase restaurant in New Orleans. Leah Chase was a source of ideas for Disney studios when they planned the movie.

I did a full review of this fascinating cookbook and memoir in two posts -- Leah Chase: New Orleans Princess and Cooking.

The Louisiana Seafood Bible is the title of a series of cookbooks by Jerald and Glenda Horst. There are separate volumes for oysters, clams, crayfish, and two for fin fish, of which I have the first volume. There's an encyclopedic coverage of all types of information about fish, and lots of recipes. I've been meaning to try some of the recipes, but so far I have not, and I haven't written about it.

Finally, Tom Fitzmorris, a food journalist with a widely followed radio show originating in New Orleans, provided a great overview of the fascinating cuisines of New Orleans, along with a selection of recipes. When my culinary book club read his Hungry Town: A Culinary History of New Orleans, I'd never heard of him, but I read his book with enthusiasm. I wrote much more about this book here: "Hungry Town": All About New Orleans.

I liked Fitzmorris's view of food, food fads, food celebrities, and food hype. His observations of trends that started in New Orleans and were misappropriated elsewhere are interesting -- blackened redfish would be one of them. I've definitely eaten some bad burned fish as a result of that fad, and he suggests that I can't blame the originators as much as the pathetic imitations.

Again, this post celebrates both the wonderful food of Louisiana and New Orleans, and Cookbook Wednesday as invented by Louise at Months of Edible Celebrations.

Dumas Celebrates Pork Month

Alexandre Dumas is best known for the Three Musketeers (at least 29 different film versions listed on IMDB, as one measure of its popularity) and The Count of Monte Cristo (at least 18 versions) but he also wrote a gigantic work called the "Grand Dictionnaire de Cuisine." I just bought the little tiny abridged version, recently republished. It's not exactly a cookbook but he does give recipes, so in honor of Louise's Cookbook Game at Months of Edible Celebrations, I'm going to share a recipe in honor of Pork Month. That's what we do in this game: we pick a current MONTH, like Apple Month or in this case Pork Month, which is celebrated in October, and we find a recipe in a cookbook we like.

The recipe in the tiny version of the "Grand Dictionnaire" which is titled From Absinthe to Zest: An Alphabet for Food Lovers, doesn't just have any old entry for pork: it has "Young Wild Boar," which in French is "marcassin." The recipe is for "Quarter of wild boar with cherry sauce." You would surely want to make it, if you happened to have a "fresh tender quarter of a young wild boar." Dumas suggests that you start by dealing with the bone -- his description is detailed, on how to do this so that the bone protrudes properly from the meat. Then you put the meat in a litre of marinade, and let it macerate for two or three days, you cook it and baste it, drain it and "mask it with a thick layer of breadcrumbs (from black bread) which have been dried, pounded, sieved, mixed with a little sugar and cinnamon, and then dampened with some good red wine, but only enough to make them stick together." There are a few more instructions on cooking it, and finally putting "a paper frill around the protruding bone."

The Cherry Sauce for the meat is made separately, from dried, unpitted cherries, softened in water and then pounded in a mortar. Additional ingredients include red wine, cinnamon, cloves, salt, and lemon zest, all thickened with starch.

Sounds delicious, doesn't it?

New Orleans Cookbooks

Louise at the blog Months of Edible Celebrations is celebrating some sporting event today. Evidently one of the teams is from New Orleans, and she wondered if I would write about some New Orleans cookbooks I had mentioned. I don't mind, as long as I don't have to say anything about sports. So here goes.

The New Orleans Cookbook by Rima and Richard Collin was first published in 1975, and it's still in print. It begins with lists. First, ingredients -- alphabetical from Absinthe through Tabasco, Tomatoes, and Yam. Second, techniques from Boiling to Smothering. The recipe organization is just as indicative of the unique NOLA cuisine: Chapter 1, Gumbos and Soups; Chapter 2, Red Beans and Rice! and Jambalya; then chapters titled Crabs, Crawfish, Oysters, Shrimp, and so on until Desserts and Drinks.

The illustrations of historic food ads, restaurants, and menus are fascinating, and the descriptions are lushly appealing:

"The steaming aroma of fresh caught crabs, shrimp, and oysters; the smell of butter and flour browning slowly in a large iron pot over an open fire; the sizzle of freshly chopped onions, green peppers, and 'shallots' added at just the moment the flour and butter turn a rich brown; the scent of chicken or duck slowly cooking into the mixture of onions, vegetables, and roux; the taste of good fresh okra or exotic sassafras -- this adds up to a good Louisiana gumbo." (p. 15)

My notes tell me I've made several recipes over the years; for example, in 1981, I tried Fricasseed Wild Duck with Brandy and Wine (p. 153), but noted that I used an ordinary duck -- never having even seen any game that I could cook. I don't really recall making this very interesting recipe. Although the recipes in this book are often challenging, I have always been glad to have this cookbook!

For simpler home cooking, people from Louisiana recommend River Road Recipes, which is published by the Junior League of Baton Rouge, LA. It's another book with staying power -- the 50th anniversary edition was published last September; several sequels are also in print. The number of copies was already in the hundreds of thousands when I bought one of 20,000 copies in the forty-fourth printing (November 1976).

My copy of River Road Recipes is yellowed and marked up. First, there's a little red check-mark beside many recipes, indicating the favorites of a woman we met in Baton Rouge (the mother of my brother's college friend). She recommended, for example, the Sauce Meuniere or Remoulade Sauce (p. 119) on trout. Over the years I've tried a large number of cakes and cookies from this book, and found most of them quite nice. Like many charity collections, some of the contributors were much more skilled at cooking, baking, and recipe writing than others.

Both of these books reflect the old-style Creole, Cajun, and New Orleans traditional cooking styles. Just reading through them is a fascinating reprise of one of our rapid trips into the city, when I seem to recall we ate three large meals between noon and evening, because our host wanted us to sample everything we possibly could. The dish that most impressed me was the bread pudding with rum sauce at a little home-style restaurant a bit away from the tourist area, but I've never had another bread pudding that delicious again.

The latest New Orleans cookbook I know about is a spin-off of Disney's latest princess movie.

Tiana's Cookbook: Recipes for Kids, to our surprise, includes quite a few serious recipes that kids may like to eat, but it takes a grownup to really cook them. Tiana's two most special dishes: beignets, which are deep-fried, or gumbo, which is rather complex, both appear in the book.

There are also some very Disney things such as cupcakes frosted to look like frogs and a cake made in the shape of an alligator, which aren't precisely New Orleans cooking, more like Disney movie cooking. The photo at left shows the gumbo as made by Evelyn, who has been cooking her way through this unexpectedly useful book.


Several weeks ago, I wrote about the movie, see: What do princesses eat?

ADDENDUM: About Indianapolis cooking:

• Louise's wonderful post about Indianapolis food is here: Winning Recipes From The Junior League of Indianapolis.
• Bobbs Merrill publishers of Indianapolis are responsible for the many editions of The Joy of Cooking.
  
• I think the most famous food in Indianapolis was at the 5 Laughner's cafeterias (there were a few elsewhere in Indiana as well). The last one closed in 2000. They had middle-American food like roast beef, fried chicken, and plain sides of mashed potatoes or corn. Googling you can find their cookie recipes -- which appear completely undistinguished. But people loved them. I ate in one once -- it wasn't one of the memorable meals of my life. A long description appeared here: Michael Stern and Jane Stern, A Reporter at Large, “CAFETERIA,” The New Yorker, August 1, 1988, p. 37
• Maybe this web page -- discovered by my sister who lives in Indiana -- is the last word on Indiana foods: it lists the breaded pork tenderloin sandwich and Indiana Cream Pie (or Hoosier pie) as the specialties of Indiana. They are ambivalent about the corn dog. Maybe it's from somewhere else. But they really have corn!

More on "Citrus: A History"

Pierre Laszlo's Citrus: A History is an uneven book, slueing from one topic to another in a sometimes dizzying way. He revisits his childhood in wartime Grenoble, France, and moves among Chinese, Arab, Jewish, Spanish, Italian, Californian, Brazilian histories. He gives both recipes for dishes like tarte au citron and detailed analysis of the chemistry of orange peel. He analyzes a number of poems and paintings, and then goes back to questions of horticulture.

In my final impression of the book, I feel that he includes a great deal of interesting material. While the weakest section of the book is his effort to interpret a number of poems, I really liked his section on painting. Here are a few more paintings with related quotes from the book:

"A Vase with Oranges" by Matisse.

Laszlo finds that there is "new logic at work in this 1916 painting. The bowl of oranges has dropped from all-important subject to mere pretext. The painting is calling attention to itself. The subject of the composition is the composition itself.... The painting by Zurbaran, as we saw, aimed at religious emotion. ... In the obverse paradox, the Matisse painting of oranges jettisons traditional rules of representation. In so doing it achieves a fullness of emotion.
This emotion came from Matisse's passion for oranges. The sight of them caused small daily epiphanies. Oranges were portents of joy, of the beauty in life."

Still Life with a Basket of Oranges by Matisse

"One of the proudest moments in Matisse's professional life was when Picasso in 1945 purchased his 1912 Still Life with a Basket of Oranges. This gave such pleasure to Matisse that henceforth, on New Year's Day, he would have a basket of oranges sent to his friend and great rival." And today, Matisse's painting is owned by the Musee Picasso in Paris.

"Still Life with Oranges, Lemons and Blue Gloves"
by Van Gogh

Laszlo writes about the late 19th century painters: "The Impressionists were responsible for the resurrection of citrus fruits as objects worthy of depiction. Paul Cezanne, of the legendary apples, would often include oranges in his still lifes. With him, the interest shifted to the light and the forms, away from the texture and the naturalistic details that he seventeenth-century Dutch painters had been so keen on. Vincent van Gogh, with his fascination with the color yellow -- which some have blamed on absinthe and some on the professional disease of pica, which makes the sufferer crave camphor and turpentine -- included lemons in his still lifes, such as Still Life with Oranges, Lemons and Blue Gloves."

I say: what a pity, to reduce the genius of Van Gogh to a diagnosis, rather than to see him as transcending illness with art. But that's my opinion.

And to top off my opinion, here is a masterpiece that illuminates the symbolism of citrus (along with other symbols such as the bunch of coral above the Virgin's head and the Mandela) in the early Renaissance -- a work painted prior to any that Laszlo discusses. Below is Mantegna's Madonna of the Victories, along with a detail from the painting. It dates from 1496, when citrus culture was relatively new, though well known to Mangna's employers in Mantua, Italy, especially to Isabella d'Este, wife of the Marquis. I wonder how Laszlo missed this.