Smoking and Culture

Smoking has been accepted into culture, in various art forms. Pipe smoking, until recently one of the most common forms of smoking, is today often associated with solemn contemplation, old age and is often considered quaint and archaic. Cigarette smoking, which did not begin to become well-known until the late 19th century, has more associations of modernity and the faster pace of the industrialized world. Smoking in public has for a long time been something reserved for men and when done by women has been associated with promiscuity. In Japan during the Edo period, prostitutes and their clients would often approach one another under the guise of offering a smoke and the same was true for 19th century Europe.

Smoking has played an important role in the cultures of North America since ancient times. Because of the ceremonial and ritual aspects of the practice in Native American societies, smoking pipes are important cultural artifacts.

The earliest illustrations of smoking can be found on Classical Mayan pottery from around the 9th century. The art was primarily religious in nature and depicted deities or rulers smoking early forms of cigarettes. Soon after smoking was introduced outside of the Americas it began appearing in painting in Europe and Asia. The painters of the Dutch Golden Age were among the first to paint portraits of people smoking and still lifes of pipes and tobacco. For southern European painters of the 17th century, a pipe was much too modern to include in the preferred images inspired by mythology from Greek and Roman antiquity. At first smoking was considered lowly and was associated with peasants. Many early paintings were of scenes set in bars or brothels. The Dutch Republic rose to considerable power and wealth, smoking became more common amongst the affluent and portraits of elegant gentlemen tastefully raising a pipe appeared. Smoking represented pleasure, transience and the briefness of earthly life as it, quite literally, went up in smoke. Smoking was also associated with symbols of both the sense of smell and that of taste.

In the 18th century smoking became in painting as the elegant practice of taking snuff became popular. Smoking a pipe was transferred to portraits of modest commoners and country folk and the refined sniffing of shredded tobacco pursued by sneezing was rare in art.

In the 19th century smoking was widespread as a symbol of simple pleasures. The pipe smoking "noble savage", solemn contemplation by Classical Roman ruins, scenes of an artists becoming one with nature while slowly taking a pipe.

Smoking a cigarette or a cigar would also become associated with the bohemian. It was a pleasure to be confined to a male world. Women smokers were associated with prostitution and was not considered an activity in which proper ladies should involve themselves.

While the symbolism of the cigarette, pipe and cigar were consolidated in the late 19th century, it was not until the 20th century that artists began to use it fully. A pipe would stand for thoughtfulness and calm; the cigarette symbolized modernity, strength and youth, but also nervous anxiety; the cigar was a sign of authority, wealth and power.

Smoking was a main element in film symbolism. In the hard boiled film noir crime thrillers, cigarette smoke often frames characters and is frequently used to add an aura of mystique or even nihilism. One of the predecessors of this symbolism can be seen in Fritz Lang's Weimar, where men captivated by card playing smoke cigarettes while gambling. Women smokers in film were also early on associated with a type of sensuous and seductive sexuality, most especially personified by German film star Marlene Dietrich.

Smoking had an important place in literature and smokers are often portrayed as characters with great individuality, something typically personified in one of the most iconic smoking literary figures of all, Sherlock Holmes.

There was few examples of tobacco in music in early modern times, though there are occasional signs of influence in pieces such as Johann Sebastian Bach's Edifying Thoughts of a Tobacco-Smoker.

Smoking has played an important role in the cultures of North America since ancient times. Because of the ceremonial and ritual aspects of the practice in Native American societies, smoking pipes are important cultural artifacts.