face, exclaimed: Monsieur, the work of man sometimes more admirable than the the Antinous, the Venus igures as beautiful and as perfect as pupils never said a word to you that sparked more pleasure and admiration in you than the most profound sentence of Tacitus?-—That has happened from time to time.—And why is that?—I is because I take a deep lem, and because they indicated to me, through their words, a great soul, a sort of insight, an accuracy of mind beyond their years.—All, right, Abbé, les think about that, If had a cup of dice, and I turned it upside down, and the rolled dice all showed the same number, would you be astonished?’—Very \ch,—And if all the dice were loaded, would you still be astonished?—No.—So apply our observations. The world is nothing but a pile of loaded and rerse molecules. There is a law of necessity that plays out—free of des ‘effort, or intelligence, or progress, of resistance—in all of the works of Nature. Ifone invented a machine that could produce paintings like those of Raphael, would these ing thus when a western wind sweeping across the country enveloped us in a thick whirlwind of dust. The Abbé halted, blinded, for a time; ‘while he rubbed his eyelids, I added: This whirlwind that seems to you to be nothing spersed randomly—well, my dear Abbe, itis as perfectly going to supply him with proofs (which ), when the appearance of a new site, stupefied, and mute. CHARLES BAUDELAIRE, SELECTIONS FROM THE SALON OF 1846 [.. .] L WHAT Goon Is CRITICISM? What good’—A vast and terrible question mark, which seizes eriticism by the neck as thing to the bourgeois, who neither wat after allt And yet criticism alone! is moment, owe their paltry reputation ¢o erhaps, isthe true reproach, aaa [cartoon by Paul] Gavarni, showing a painterbent over a igi in a white tie—holding, in his hand, his latest fe says thae”—"Criticis philosophers say, to have a I—that is to say, ‘view that opens up reason for being, criticism should be partial, impassion formed from an exclusive point of view, but also from a the greatest number of horizons. To glorily line to the detriment of color, or color at the expense of line, is doubtless a point of view; but itis neither very sweeping nor very just, and it points to.a great ignorance of individual destinies. ire, Oewores completes, ed. F. F. Gauer, vol. 5 (Editions de ta Nouvel ted and foomoted by Kere Houston, Bavdelaire's234 Anthology face, exclaimed: Monsieur, the work of man sometimes more admirable than the My good Abbé, I responded, have you seen the Antinous, the Venus the Venus Callipyge, and some other ancient works?—Ves.—-Have you fever encountered, in nature, figures as beautiful and as perfect as those?—No, 1 ‘confess.—And have your litle pupils never said a word to you that sparked more pleasure and adn ‘in you than the most profound sentence of Tacitus?—That 2 because I take a deep law of necessity that plays out—free of dé ‘oF progress, of resistance—in all of the works of Nature. If one ike those of Raphael, would these logic, was Raphael hims true, but Raphael the machine has né spersed rani swell, my dear Abbé, it i as per ge... and I was going to supply him with proofs (which in any position to enjoy), when the appearance of « new site, ro less admirable than the first, cut off my Voice and confounded me, and I stood stupefied, and mute. [..] CHARLES BAUDELAIRE, SELECTIONS FROM THE SALON OF 1846 ] L WHAT GOOD Is CRITICISM? take a firs step, in a fi immediately reproaches to teach a single Jing to the bourgeois, who neither wai fhyme—or to art, since artis noble, criticism is holy.°——"Who Is because the le in works themselvest, the public But this kind of criticism is destined for collections of poetry and for po ism, in the more common sense, I hope understand what 1 am about to say: in order to be just, that reason for being, criticism should be partial, impassioned, hed in the November 27, 1839, issue ofthe satis236 Anthology ‘You don’t know to what degree nature has mixed, in each soul, a taste for line and a taste for color, or by which mysterious processes she brings about that fusion, ‘whose result is a painting, ‘Thus a broader point of view will involve a perceptive roquites, of the antst, naiveté and a sincere expression of his temperament, aided. hhis profession can offer him.* Anyone without temperament is ccticism may carry out . and passion brings similar temperaments together and lifts reason to new heights. Stendhal has said somewhere: “Painting is nothing but moral education!” —If you take the word ‘moral’ in a more or less liberal sense, one can say the same thing about all ofthe arts. And as they are always the beautiful, expressed by means of sentiment, of ‘passion, and ofthe daydreams of each man (that isto say, variety in unity, or the various faces of the absolute), criticism comes into contact, at every moment, with metaphysics. Every century and every people has fostered the expression of its particular beauty and morality (if you understand romanticism as ‘greatest romanticism possible. ( IV. EUGENE DELACROIX Romanticism and color lead me straight to Eugene Delacroix. I don’t know if he is proud of his status as a romantic, but his place is here, because the majority of the public appointed him, a long time ago—from his first work, in fact—the head of the of a serene joy, race which have already been mer essential to the completion of my demonstration, Besides pleasure that true enthusiasts of Eugene Delacroix Constitutionnel, taken from the Salon of the journalist (Adolphe) Thiers: ying of a great painter more clearly serve the eruption of tal of hope that is otherwise wi “The author has, be inter and writer, that ac to etely different from the frst sor. rows his figures, grouping and bending them at will, with the boldness of Michelangelo and the productivity of Rubens. A vague memory of the great Selections from the Salon of 1846 237 artists seized me at the sight of this painting; {found that wild and bla: also natural, power that submits without effort to its own improver do not believe that I deceive myself: Delacroix has been granted get May he develop this confidence; may he deliver great works (an indispensable condition of talent). And surely this will give him even more confidence: the ‘opinion that I express here on his account is also that of one of the great mas- ters of the academy, AT, ‘These enthus 2s are really stupefying, as much for their precocity as for their boldness. chief of the newspaper had pretentions, as we might assume he did, of being something of an expert in painting, young Thiers must have struck him as slightly insane. To get a good sense of the deep confusion into which the painting of Dante and Virgil must have thrown minds of the time—of the astonishment, the shock, the 5 of insolent laughter you have to remember a despot hhis master David) there was only small number of langelo, There was no question, as yet, of Rut Guérin, harsh and severe towards his young pupil, only looked at the painting because of the racket that had arisen around it Géricault, who had returned from It great Roman and Florentine frescoes and swore off seve neatly origi qualities), complimented the new (and still rather timid) painter so extens he was almost embarrassed, ‘was before this painting or, some time later, before The Plague at Chios* that Gérard himself (who, it would seem, was more of a wit than a painter), cried: “A painter has just been revealed to us, bt ‘man who runs on the rooftops!"—To run on ie paintings of the governmental Tong one, but the biography of such courage and such passion, the most interesting strug ‘with himself; the horizons do not need t battles to be important; the strangest revolutions and episodes occur under the sky of the skull, mysterious laboratory of the brain, [. Up to the present, we have been unjust toward Eugene Delacroix. Criticism of ‘him has been bitter and ignorant; save for a few noble exceptions, praise itself must often have seemed shocking to " plague instead of massacre, to explain to reproached. whinking ries the Mesh tones so often sroix's work in the Chambre des Pais and the Chambre des ‘which was ongoing in 1846,238 Anthology it was common to compare Eugene Delacroix to Victor Hugo. We had ‘oct; we needed a painter. This need to find, at any cost, counterparts a. how litle people knew. Surely the comparison must have seemed “tne Delscoe ° if my definition feeble minds, We need to abandon, for once and for all, the suggestions of these thei own inane talking heade Ibe al ofthore who have fl the ned to ces, for toe, dente aushei stem, and 10 dedoce cause from tel esl, to coely Corapre the work of theae two ast 2 tor Muyo, whose nobly and majesty I crsnly dont want to diminish i system of organizs rial and dramaievior Hugo allows rarer oo bef ol a ssumes, in his work, symmetrical contrasts to be fully visible. Even eccent “ns eM eh yaa lenerty Hugo wa, array, an academic before fe wat Bor, tre were al Ivng va tite of alow Wonders I woul wlingybetere tat he [de France] would ten murmur, when he walked pas the im ina prophet vole: “You wil be an Academician ste s slower in coming His works onthe conta, ae poems vely conceived’ and executed with the customary insolence of is nothing tat needs guesing for he ss ouch plese in xh tra stecamps reflection —The second opens, n hit the most roving minds-—The fist enjoys cera rang ‘overall of his poetry aspects which te stubborn and Chafing agains the onstsnts of his craft do no a beyins with detail, the other with an intimate know thatthe one only grasps the skin and dhe other fips too atentive tothe surfaces of nature, Victor Hugo has Delacoiy, always respect of his ide, i often, towitingy,» poet in painting ce the prejudice regarding chance, ore impertinent or sly han to talk ce Delacroix, about the debts that he might owe to s0ch an approach makes me shrug my shoulders in pi Tae more chance in a thn thee chs. A ornate discovery I the simple consequence of good reasoning, from which one can sometimes om the intervening dedtons just ie a mistake i the consequence of fase principle 4 practiced eye, j; where one tone is always destined to accent anothe ‘an occasional shortcoming in drawing is sometimes necessary, to avoid sacrificing something of greater importance. “by ave, one must understand a gens ia workshop technique, combined with gd sean (know thyscbut science modesty grant temperament he leading role Selections from the Salon of 1846 239 lk of chance in the business of Delacroix's painting is even more {implausible given that he is one of the rare men who remain original ater having drawn from all the true sources, and whose indomitable individ fn tum, the yokes cast off by each of the great masters.—More than one of you would be astounded to see a study he made after Raphael—a patient and arduous masterpiece of imitation—and few people now remember the lithographs that he made after medals and engraved stones. Here are some lines from Hei ‘method—a method which is, as with all men of a strong co his temperament: “Concerning art, I am a supernaturalist ‘cannot find all of his forms in nature, but that the most le are revealed him in his soul, like the innate significance of innate ideas, and at the same instant, ine which explain, rather well, Delacroix’s [Carl Friedrich von Rumohr), a contemporary professor of aesths Researches on italy, has made an effort to restore Of the tmitation of nature, and to hold that the pl forms in nature. But that professo Plastic arts, had overlooked one architecture ~whose forms he has tried to identify, after the fact, in the eanopies of the forests, and in the rocky grottoes. But such forms were notin extecnal nature, but rther in the human soul.” ‘So Delacroix proceeds from this principle: that a painting should before all else reproduce the intimate thought of the artist, who dominates the model, as a creator there stems a second which appears at first f the most ancient: that is, is important that the hand meet, when it gets down to work, the fewest obstacles possible, and that it accomplish with obedient quickness the divine orders of the brain; otherwis If the design process of this j hhis execution is every bit as fast. That is one athe shares with the man ‘whom public opinion has defined as his antipode: Ingres. A mother's labor, though, rth, and these two great lords of painting, while endowed with an apparent laziness, display a marvelous agility in covering the canvas. [Ingres' Martyrdom of] Saint Sympbortum was entirely re-executed several times, and in the beginning it featured many fewer figures. For E, Delacroix, nature is a vast dictionary whose leaves he turns and consults with a sure and keen eye; and this painting, which emanates above all from the {s not the same as the moment of Virgit, for example—always leaves a deep impre sity grows with distance. Sacrificing, constantly, de fatigue caused bya of his thought, he plainly enjoys an el The use of a ¥e consequences of a great passion, what id ‘must accept the inevitability of a talent, and not bargain with genius. Such a thing is never dreamt of by the people who have made so much fun of Delacroix's deawing,tors, a tribe, more biased and one-eyed than should be worth, at most, half that of an architect.—Sculpeure, has nothing to debate with an artist who is concerned above all Color, and atmosphere. These three elements necessarily demand a hhas not been overrun by the system of straigl and his draperies aflutter. From the point of view of ‘an examination of even more general qualities.—One of the principal “Thus an epic poet (Homer, or story, a speech, a description, Se his Pata, in Sa ainter—and of nalvete, thst isto say a complete man. Go Touts a Marat, where the majese queen of sorrows hols, on her knees the Body leaves, in the mind, a deep furrow of melancholy. —It was not, though, that he had tackled religious subjects. Agony tu the Garden and le ago—that the observer that he selects the subjects 1e86 of his talent perfectly Selections from the Salon of 1846 241 1 remember that one of my friends—a boy of real merit, moreover, and an already fashionable colorist; one of those precocious young men who give hope thelr ‘and much more academic than he himself would ever believe called this 18 4 painting by a cannibal! Surely, our pleasant friend won't ever come across such desolation (barely offset by the somber green, anci specimens on a loaded palette, or in the dictionary of rule This terrible hymn to suffering affected his classical imagination much as the Potent wines of Anjou, or the Auvergne, or the Rhine Valley would affect a stomach, accustomed to the pale violettes of Médoc. So much for universality of feeling—and now for universality of science! For a long time, our paiaters have, so to speak, lost their grasp on the genre called known as decoration. This year, Delacroix’s paintings are The Abduction of Rebecca taken from leanboe, ‘The Parting of Romeo and Juliet, Margaret in Church; and a Lion, in watercolor, ‘The admirable thing in the Abduction of Rebecca is the perfect arrangements of tones—intense tones, and compressed ones, and cramped and lo ‘which results a striking effect. In almost every painter who is no always notice voi I ones—from, Romeo and Juliet—on the balcony—in other pious that completes it. The general success of this pai prove what I have already sai Painters disagree, and that sim ‘sulfice to make him every ‘To complete this analysis, Ihave to note one last one last quality in Delacrotx, the trie painter of the nineteenth century: that is the singular and dogged melancholy that emanat ‘Works, and that is manifested in the choice of subjects, and in the expression of the figures, and in gesture, and in style, and in the style of color. Delacroix is fond of Dante and Shakespeare, two other great painters of human suffering; he knows them deeply, And he can translate them freely. In contemplating his paintings as a series, one weal say that one was assisting at the celebration of some dist Each of the Old M: Forced to share with Color, Rubens an fers has his kingdom, el has form, Rubens and Veronese igelo a drawing style characterized by imagination, Onehis ar Thacly know of ny, sees due to this totally modern and novel quality thst Delacroix nh expression of pours af Het the get aden 6, ope, bility, and inatednes of compostion and worthy successor tothe Old Masters, 1g to see the good side of that they leap out at the many others engage people? The failing least trained eye. for a long time, they to see the dazzling qu: ‘geniuses, when they 1e privilege of XI. ON HORACE VERNET . rigorous principles that drive the search for beauty by this eminent national anse“whose compostions decorate both te humble cotage of accomplished gs made him Selections from the Salon of 1846 243, solecisms, but also with public-spiritedness and patrotisan hate him because he was born coiffed*, and because art easy thing —But he will recount your common glory, and that is important {hing—Bah! What does that matter to the enthusiastic voyager, to the cosmopolitan spirit who prefers beauty to glory? To define Horace Vernet in a simple manner: he is the absolute antithesis of {25 Ais he substitutes the chic for drawing, dissonance for color and mere episodes for unity; he makes paintings like [those by Jean-Louis Ernest] Meissonies” ten se large as the world, ' catry out his official mission, Horace Vernet is endowed with two , One related to absence and the other to ‘an almanac! (, | Who knows, more accuratel adorn each uniform, or the exact turm of a [s elius congratulated him only once, tity of champagne that Vernet could —True oF not, the story certainly has a poetic truth any mor being tactless here, Yet itis not imprudent to be Point, when in every sentence the J actually refers to a we, an immense and invisible we—ue, a whole new generation, opposed to war and national 4 generation full of health, since it is young, and which already push clbowing and creating space for itself—serious, reverent, and threatening! Ruudchite i apparent referring, Nee, to PleweJean de Réranger, an inmensely popular poet and. ‘onsiderable political influence and who was elected Although ne ‘onsituent Assembly In 1848. He died “An expression of Mare Fournier which can apply to al ‘ans, who are hardly more than writers of fetlans, "You could thus sing before every one of Horace Verne You've only got one chance to lve, Friends, spond t happy ‘An essentially French happiness244 Anthology XI. ON THE HEROISM OF MODERN LIFE Many people will attribute the decline of paint 1e decline of morals.* This is a poor excuse, offered by ‘What was that great tradition, if not the ordinary, customary ide ancient life? Robust and warlike life, a defensiveness resulting in the habit of moving seriously, and of this the public pomp which was reflected in private Before seeking that which might be the epic side of modem life, and proving, through examples, that our epoch is not any less rich in sublime motifs than bygone ‘century and every people have their own beauty, the particular, Absolute and etern aan abstraction skimmed from the general surface of various beauties. The particular clement of each beauty comes from the passions, and as we have our particular passions, we have our own beaut With the exception of whose suicides were not mo intings? In all the {Balzac’s} Rafael de ‘As to the uniform, or the skin, of the modem hero: while the times in which hack painters dressed themselves in pseudo-Turkish outfits and smoked the equivalent of duck-hunting rifles are gone, the studios—and the world—are of people who wout poeticize [Alexandre Dumas'] Antony, with a Greek coat of a eworpart piece ‘And yet, does this often mocked style not have its beauty and its indigenous charm? Is it not the necessary outfit of our epoch, suffering and wearing the symbol ff a perpetual mourning upon its meager black shoulders? Note well that the black ‘dress coat and the overcoat have not only a political beauty (that is, the expression of also a poetic beauty (which task is that much more glorious. The great c black clothing, a white necktie, and a gray background, smetempsychosis. Sclections from the Salon of 1846 245 ‘To return to the principal and essential question, which ist learn if we possess a particular beauty bound up with the new passions: I notice tackled modern subjects have satisfied themselves with pi official themes, with our victories and our political heroism. Still, they only do it while grumbling, and ‘because they are ordered to, by the government that pays them. Yet thete are private subjects which are heroic in a very different sense. thousands of floating existences— eat city: the Gazette des to do anything but open , pestered by the irreverent badgering of the opposition, ‘with that haughtiness and supreme eloquence ty ind his distaste for all of his ignorant, red-tape-wielding in the evening, you will hear, on the Boulevard des It the Chamber [of Pat id you see he was! I have never seen such a fine figure! ‘And so there is a modern beauty, a modern heroism! (. is rich in poetic and marvelous subjects. The marvelous surrounds ike an atmosphere; but we don't see it. le, oh, Vautrin, Rastignac, teau—and you, oh, Fontanarés', who dare not describe, to the public, your the gloomy and convulsed tailcoat that we all favor—and you, Honoré de Balzac, you the most heroic, t poetic ofall the characters that yo) ‘the four names are those of characters in three aovels and a play by Honoré de ‘iter whom Baudelaire occasionally sateized in print and on whom he wrote a book,