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Tobacco and art


Depictions of tobacco smoking in art date back at least to the pre-Columbian Maya civilization, where smoking had religious significance. The motif occurred frequently in painting of the 17th-century Dutch Golden Age, in which people of lower social class were often shown smoking pipes. In European art of the 18th and 19th centuries, the social location of people – largely men – shown as smoking tended to vary, but the stigma attached to women who adopted the habit was reflected in some artworks. Art of the 20th century often used the cigar as a status symbol, and parodied images from tobacco advertising, especially of women. Developing health concerns around tobacco smoking also influenced its artistic representation. Recently tobacco has impacted on art in a quite different way, with the conversion of many cigarette vending machines into Art-o-mat outlets, selling miniature artworks the shape and size of a cigarette packet.

Mayas were perhaps the first people to represent tobacco smoking in art. Mayas smoked heavily, and they believed that their gods did too.Religious rituals often involved tobacco: offerings were given to certain gods and tobacco smoke warded off evil deities. Many tribes viewed tobacco as a supernatural, magical substance (perhaps because of its strong physiological and sometimes hallucinogenic effects). Because of tobacco’s significance, it is not surprising that Mayas produced artistic representations of smoking. The artwork mostly portrays religious rituals and myths involving gods or lords because ordinary people and actions were considered too unimportant and unworthy for time consuming art pieces.

Numerous depictions of smoking can be found from the Classic epoch (3rd through 8th centuries). Though what substance deities and people are smoking cannot be said for certain, scholars generally conclude that the smoked substance is tobacco after studying archaeological materials. The representations are occasionally confusing as the Mayas portrayed smoke and cigars in varied ways. Smoke can be illustrated with black dots, black and red dots (with red indicating sparks), converging scrolls, or converging coils. Converging scrolls also sometimes represent foliage, speech, fire, smells, and other things. Cigars are usually funnel-shaped (or torch-shaped) and vary greatly in size.Cigarettes (small, slender cigars in this case) resemble modern cigarettes (narrow, long rectangles) or elongated ovals.


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