Aged just twenty-five at the time of publication, Baudelaire is confident, endlessly quotable, but resolutely indecisive. He is a flaneur of opinion. Recently re-released by David Zwirner Books, The Salon of 1846 is a review of the annual exhibition held at Louvre palace. Baudelaire searches for certainty in criticism and painting, he values consistency in style, clarity of vision, feeling. The book is divided into a series of essays. In the first, “What is the Good of Criticism”, Baudelaire exclaims, “criticism should be partial, passionate and political, written from an exclusive point of view”. He deplores the “eclectic” painter, “a doubter”, “a man without love”, “neither star nor compass”. Guignet “carries two men about in his head”. Gigoux’s painting “looks like a work by one of those countless masters of the Florentine decadence”. Brune: “no soul – no great faults, but no great quality.” Cabat, “deserted the path on which he had won himself such a great reputation.” Yet Baudelaire is guilty of his own criticism: he is “a ship which tries to sail before all four winds".
Baudelaire: A Doubter Without Love
Baudelaire: A Doubter Without Love
Baudelaire: A Doubter Without Love
Aged just twenty-five at the time of publication, Baudelaire is confident, endlessly quotable, but resolutely indecisive. He is a flaneur of opinion. Recently re-released by David Zwirner Books, The Salon of 1846 is a review of the annual exhibition held at Louvre palace. Baudelaire searches for certainty in criticism and painting, he values consistency in style, clarity of vision, feeling. The book is divided into a series of essays. In the first, “What is the Good of Criticism”, Baudelaire exclaims, “criticism should be partial, passionate and political, written from an exclusive point of view”. He deplores the “eclectic” painter, “a doubter”, “a man without love”, “neither star nor compass”. Guignet “carries two men about in his head”. Gigoux’s painting “looks like a work by one of those countless masters of the Florentine decadence”. Brune: “no soul – no great faults, but no great quality.” Cabat, “deserted the path on which he had won himself such a great reputation.” Yet Baudelaire is guilty of his own criticism: he is “a ship which tries to sail before all four winds".