The Art and Beauty of Smoking. Smoking has been used in art long before big tobacco, and well before the anti-smoking movement. In the modern era, the cigarette has come to symbolize sex and the cigar machismo. Holmes brought pipe smoking to the intellect and the hookah will forever symbolize the exotic. It's no coincidence that one rebel after another has had smoking attached to their image. Non-smokers often use it in their art (no matter whether models, photographers or painters). The symbolism carried in smoke simply has no easy replacement. Whether you're FOR smoking or AGAINST it, this is a space for smoking in the arts.