The Painter of Modern Life and Other Essays

charles baudelaire thom mayne

Charles Baudelaire (1821 - 67) was a leading poet and novelist in nineteenth who also devoted a considerable amount of his time to criticism. Indeed it was with a Salon review that he made his literary debut: and it is significant that even at this early stage - in 1845 - he was already articulating the need for a painter who could depict the heroism of modern life. This he was to find in Constantin Guys, whom he later celebrated in the famous essay which provides the title-piece for this collection. Other material in this volume includes important and extended studies of three of Baudelaire's contemporary heroes - Delacroix, Poe and Wagner - and some more general articles, such as those on the theory and practice of caricature, and on what Baudelaire, with intentional scorn, called philosophic art. This last article develops views only touched on in Baudelaire's other writings. This volume is extensively illustrated with reproductions of works referred to in the text and otherwise relevant to it. It provides a survey of some of the most important ideas and individuals in the critical world of the great poet who has been called the father of modern art criticism.

Genres artnonfictionessaysphilosophyclassicsfranceart historyfrench literaturepoetry19th century

264 pages, Paperback

First published November 26,1863

This edition

Format: 264 pages, Paperback
Published: August 24, 1995 by Phaidon Press
ISBN: 9780714833651
ASIN: 0714833657
Language: English

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Richard Wagner

Wilhelm Richard Wagner (1813 – 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his later works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most opera composers, Wagner wrote both t...
Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe (1809 - 1849) was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American writers of short stories a...
Eugène Delacroix

Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix (1798 - 1863) was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school....

About the author

charles baudelaire

Public condemned Les fleurs du mal (1857), obscene only volume of French writer, translator, and critic Charles Pierre Baudelaire; expanded in 1861, it exerted an enormous influence over later symbolist and modernist poets.

Reputation of Charles Pierre Baudelaire rests primarily on perhaps the most important literary art collection, published in Europe in the 19th century. Similarly, his early experiment Petits poèmes en prose (1868) ( Little Prose Poems) most succeeded and innovated of the time.

From financial disaster to prosecution for blasphemy, drama and strife filled life of known Baudelaire with highly controversial and often dark tales of Edgar Allan Poe. Long after his death, his name represents depravity and vice. He seemingly speaks directly to the 20th century civilization.