The art of Coke

In 1915 D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation was premièred, Henry Ford manufactured his millionth Model-T (‘a million of anything is a lot’, he said), Kafka’s Metamorphosis was published and so, too, was one of Einstein’s critical contributions to his own general theory of relativity.

Mixed into this modernist cocktail of extreme achievement and harrowing perceptions was something more banal, but just as enduring: the Coca-Cola ‘contour’ bottle. A century old this year, it is, in a disputed field, an undisputed ‘design classic’. And, like any classic in any genre, it can be read in many ways.

Long before Apple and the Messianic Steve Jobs, Coca-Cola developed a business model that was the proxy of a larger belief system. Selling Coke was structurally identical to religion: in a rootless population of immigrants, the Coca-Cola brand — any brand — offered the comfort of familiarity. There was a liturgy of simple but appealing claims (‘delicious and refreshing’), persuasive iconography in the form of relentless advertising, an articulate priesthood of boosters, a thirsty congregation and …an artefact of faith: the distinctive bottle. Icon is an abused term, but not here.

In 1836 Alexis de Tocqueville, with an old European perspective, marvelled at the mercantile energy of America. ‘It is odd,’ he wrote, ‘to watch with what feverish ardour the Americans pursue prosperity.’ Thirty-eight years later, Sherman burnt Atlanta. As it was being rebuilt, John Stith Pemberton, an itinerant quack with a morphine habit, was dabbling in over-the-counter remedies, snake oil, hair dyes and cordials, hovering at all times between the likelihood of jail or the prospect of great riches.

His Globe Flower Cough Syrup was, for example, not a success, but in 1886 he, by what agency is not known, made a concoction that tasted better than merely medicinal. Intended as a ‘brain tonic’ to alleviate dyspepsia and melancholy, its essential ingredients were the coca leaf and kola nut.