Read the story of alcohol in art. Drunkenness in Art
Detail from William Hogarth’s Gin Lane (1751). Photograph: Burstein Collection/Corbis From William Hogarth’s Gin Lane to deliberately amateurish photos of Gilbert & George at a bar, the seductions of alcohol are a recurring theme in art. A new exhibition serves Nicholas Lezard with sobering images of drinking and drunks. A esthetic considerations, or rather evaluations, need not apply. That’s the point, and consolation, of exhibitions centred on a public theme rather than an artistic one. You get to see the bad as well as the good. Take Tate Britain’s forthcoming display, Art and Alcohol . Cleverly, having neither the wall space nor the budget to whistle for every artwork depicting drunkenness, Tate’s David Blayney Brown has put together a rather modest collection to illustrate not so much the way alcohol affects art or artists, but the way artists use the subject of alcohol to tell a story. Some artists like telling stories more than others. Ro...