Bohemians, The Glamorous Outcasts - Elizabeth Wilson

I decided to read about Bohemian culture a little more as I thought the documentary I watched on this topic was very relevant to my essay. It turns out that this movement is a really good example of what we are seeing happening today with hipster culture. It is about the idea of not belonging to anything, but then this is latched onto by consumer society and this lifestyle becomes marketable. As soon as it becomes product and purchasing based, the true values of the movement are diminished. It also connects strongly to how our subconscious needs as human beings are tapped into by brands to target us as buyers. 

p2

… ‘an early bohemian was, an isolated eccentric. The fully fledged nineteenth-century bohemians, on the other hand, belonged to an identifiable subculture.’

• Same concept as the hipster, doesn’t want to be a part of a subculture but inevitably becomes part of one when enough people do the same. 

p3

‘He or she embodies dissidence, opposition, criticism of the status quo; these may be expressed politically, aesthetically or in the artist’s behaviour and lifestyle.’ 

• Speaking about trying to be different in an attempt to make some sort of change. The second part of this quote is the most important as it states that this notion is expressed in some ‘buyable’ areas like aesthetic and lifestyle. These link to products. 

p7

‘The bohemian myth revolves around a central problem of authenticity.’

• Use this to link to hipster handbook. Seems like a modern repeat of the bohemian movement. 

‘Culture was becoming a commodity and society demanded the artists should bow to the laws of the expanding market.’

• Art as a business. This could maybe be used in introduction to introduce the topic of bohemia and how it links in to my argument.

p9

… ‘if bohemian values have really penetrated mainstream society’ … ‘are we all bohemians now’?

• When everyone becomes it, is it a thing anymore? Evolving and getting one-up on the previous. This could link to the Callaghan illustration, specifically the Wholefoods argument. 

p11

‘Bohemia was above all a quest, less an identity than a search for identity, less a location than a utopia.’ 

• Link to Maslo. Self betterment/actualisation. Is it ever reachable? If not then there will always be new things marketable to make people think they can get closer to it. 

p72

‘eccentric characters’ [were] ‘sometimes so original that their lives became works of art in themselves.’ 

• Lifestyle! This links to virtue signalling. Using your lifestyle as a form of display. 

p73

‘Many bohemians simply poured their creativity into the’ … ‘art of living.’

• Same as previous. See which quote would work best in the text. 

‘It was above all a home for black sheep and rebels.’

• This is how it begins, with people who are different. This is before it becomes a marketable idea. Then it is for anyone. 

p75

‘bohemian values leaked into the mass culture of modernity.’

• If I use this I will need to explain modernity. The idea of the quote is very relevant to how corporations sell culture back to us. 

p82

‘The 1960s’ [was] ‘when Bohemia met mass culture in a more wholehearted marriage of madness’

• This quote could spark a whole new section to my essay which I don’t think I need to go into. There are many examples in the 60s that would be relevant but I feel this may take my argument off track. 

p160

‘Some bohemians gave their surroundings a symbolic meaning.’ 

• Use to speak about my practical work in chapter 4. Contextualisation of my work. 

p161

… ‘the bohemians by ‘making a statement’ with their style of dress, were doing only what everyone else was doing. To adhere to the rules of polite dress was to signal your commitment to the good manners of a gentleman; it therefore followed that to flout them was both to commit a real social transgression and to announce a different inner individual truth.’ 

• Using your personal image to get across what you believe in. People speak with material things.

p162

‘the bohemian artist looks unkempt’ … ‘he was telling the world of his defiance, of his dissent from bourgeois values and of his poverty therefore as a moral value rather than an economic condition.’ 

• Same as previous. Using your image to get across the values and opinions you have. It is also showing your place within society - it is the beginning of making poverty ‘desirable’. 

p221

Malcom Cowley - ‘the commercialisation of Bohemia was apparent in Greenwich Village soon after 1918’ … ‘bohemian lifestyles were essential to the way in which more and more aspects of life were marketed.’ 

• Could draw a parallel between hipster and bohemian culture. Alternatively use in chapter 2 as an example of how lifestyles become commodities. 

p227

Cyril Connolly - [artists and intellectuals had become] ‘culture diffusionists, selling culture for a living’

[there became a point where bohemianism] ‘was dead’ [and the original bohemians like painters and writers] ‘could no longer afford la vie bohème.’

• This introduces the problem of commodifying lifestyles and values - it voids the initial movement. It turns it back on itself and diminishes the value of the intentions of that movement. 

p234

‘where are the young bohemians?’ … ‘All swept up in a youth culture that doesn’t differentiate between art and entertainment.’

• This quote is in reference to today. Could this be used in the conclusion to give an idea of the state we are in now?

p246

[Postmodernist theorists may argue that individuals are] ‘in search for belonging, a question less of ‘resistance through rituals’ than of ‘conformity through rituals’.’

• Link to Callaghan and Maslo - in an attempt to better yourself and resist the ways of consumer society, you end up being pat of it because consumer society tries to sell you a way out (which doesn't exist).

p247

‘This does not mean that the desire to change society has disappeared’ … ‘It does not follow that youth culture is concerned only with ‘distinction,’ with an empty kind of coolness and hip devoid of political aspirations.’ 

• Connect to Callaghan potentially?
• Or use in chapter 4 to explain that people today still want to make a difference to society, they just feel like this can be done through buying. 

p248

‘it is most unlikely that the desire to create a different and more authentic life will ever disappear.’

• Use in conclusion to explain that this will never go away. The cycle of commodifying social issues will continue as long as the desire to live a ‘caring’ life exists.