'.
.J
'Salon de 1859' was originally
ris, 10 June - 20 July 1859. The
layne in Artin Paris: 1845-1862,
fferent ways, 'COpy nature; just
lmph than an excellent copy of
;cd to apply not only to painting
these doctrinaires, who were so
{l would certainly have had the
represent what exists, because
)refer the monsters of my fancy
!n more philosophical to ask the
quite certain of the existence of
ell calculated to pander to their
19 all nature, that is, all that is
ost boastful and extravagant of
:l its singular and humiliating
the honour of believing that it
d only paint in accordance with
y faithful to his own nature. He
I the feelings of another man,
:tions would be lies in relation
.om I am speaking (for there is a
ave representatives everywhere
ss) - if these pedants, I say, did
i simply believe that they meant
no one else is to have any.'
le Faculties! It touches all the
t times it resembles them to the
Ise men who are not quickened
Nhich withers their productions
vho are clever at analysis and
magination. It is that, and it is
ople who are very sensitive, too
Ition that first taught man the
f scent. In beginning of the
s all creation, and with the raw
with rules whose origins one
reates a new world, it produces
(so much can be said, I think,
vern it. What would be said of a
lcellent soldier, but that ifhe is
ts. The case could be compared
lmand of his faculties from the
.. lIIo The Conditions of Art 491
imaginatio to give it, for example, t his knowledge of I guage or to hi observation
of facts. Wh would be said of a dip I at without imagi tion? that he y have an
excellent know ge of the history of tr ties and alliances i the past, but t t he will
never guess the tr ties and alliances hel .n store by the futu . Of a scholar ithout
imagination? that he s learnt everything at, having been ta ht, could be arnt,
that he will never over any laws that h ve not yet been gu ed at. Imagina . n
queen of truth, an he possible is one of e provinces of trutH It has a positiv,
with the infim .
imagination, all t
they did not e t, whereas a weak s in some of the secondary
as they are e ited by a vigorous 'magination, is a condary
of them can do .thout it, but the I k of some of them
when our other cui ties only fiP,d t they are seeking fter
different me ods which ill-a apted to the natur of
in, and proudly d simply guesses e answer. Finally, It
in ethical matters, for - allow me to 0 so far and to ask,
ima .nation? You mig as well speak of' e without pity,
wnftuu[ Heaven it is hard, cruel, sterib 'ng thing, which
and in othe protestantism.
magnificent ivilegesjhat I a 'bute to the ima
pay your reaUers the insult of ex lainilfg to them t the more it is elped in its
the more po\erful it is, and that ere is nothing m re formidable in ur battles
ideal than a{ine imagination di sing of an imm nse armoury 0 bserved
'\
ImaginatiQn, one thanks also
7 Victor Fournel (1829-1894) 'The Art of Fliinerie'
The flaneur in Walter Benjamin's memorable phrase, is one who 'botanizes upon the
asphalt'. Where, for Champfleury, the artist is an impassioned naturalist whose pictures
are assured of objectivity by the force of his sensations, for Fournel he is an 'idler' who
registers the passing impressions of the city with the sensitivity of a photographic plate.
The 'stonebreakers' whose performance Fournel's flaneur admires are actual men at work
on the streets of Paris. Aviewer who had observed Courbefs work in the Salon of 1850-1
might conceivably have registered the irony. Fournel was not writing as an engaged critic
of art, however. He is representative of a number of writers in the Paris of the 1850s and
1860s who devoted themselves to advertising the delights of the capital, its theatrical
entertainments, its exhibitions and its streets (for later forms of the same type of publica-
tion, see VBll and VlA2). The title of the book from which this excerpt is taken can be
translated as Things to be Seen on the Streets of Paris. It is noteworthy that the urban
paintings of the Impressionists were to conjure up a similar repertoire of sights. As the
author makes clear, the concepts of the flaneur (or stroller) and the badaud (or idler)
gained a specific meaning in the context of the time and place, and through the particular
forms of self-image open to the prosperous Parisian male (see also the following text). This
was the type of spectator whose interests and point of view were to be both represented
492 Modernity and Bourgeois Ufe
by Maners painting and critically reflected back from its surfaces. Fournel's book was
originally published as Ce qu'on voit dans /es rues de Paris, Paris: Adolphe Delahays,
1858. The following extract is taken from chapter II, pp. 261-4, translated for this volume
by Christopher Miller.

What a fine and enjoyable thing is jlanerie, and how full of charms and enticements is
the work of the badauJ! Those who have once tasted it can never afterwards be sated;
they return to it incessantly, as - it is said one returns to one's first loves. 'A
sluggard's life!' cry the serious. Sluggard! Now really; I should not wish to overstep
the bounds of civility with anyone; but it is clear that you have never jlant, gentlemen,
and are incapable of doing so; it is not given to everyone to jlaner naively yet
knowingly ... This life is, on the contrary, for those able to understand and practice
it, the most active of lives, the most and productive; an intelligent and
conscientious idler, who scrupulously perlbrms his duties that is, observes and
remembers everything - can playa leading role in the republic of art. Such a man is an
impassioned, peripatetic daguerreotype upon whom the least trace registers; in him
are reproduced, with every that they cast, the progress of things, the
movement of the city, the multifatfous physiognomy of the public mind, the beliefs,
antipathies and adorations of the mass.
It was while strolling through,Paris that Balzac made so many priceless discoveries,
heard so many quips, unearthe<fso many representative types. It was a sort ofjlanerie
upon the ocean wave that led Christopher Columbus to discover America. And many
new Americas remain to be discovered by one strolling his own course through certain
as yet uncharted domains of the Parisian Ocean.
Have you ever considered all that this charming word jlanerie, so beloved of poets
and humorists, holds in store? To make interminable expeditions through streets and
promenades; to wander, attentive to what may chance, with one's hands in one's
pockets and an umbrella under one's arm, like any upright soul; to follow one's nose,
with no notion of haste or destination, like Jean de la Fontaine as he set off for the
Academie; to stop at every store to examine the images, at the corner of every street to
study the posters, at every book-stall to run a hand over the bindings; to see a crowd
gathered round a performing rabbit, and to join it, careless of one's dignity, fascin-
ated, delighted, giving oneself up to the spectacle heart, soul and senses; to listen, here
to the homily of a soap-seller, there to the poetical pitch of a hawker of watches at
twenty-five sous, and further on to the reiterated complaints of misunderstood
charlatans; if need be, to follow the music of a passing regiment for mile upon mile a
along the quais, or listen in all earnestness to the cooings of the cafe Morel's prima t
donna; to savour the variety of the hurdy-gurdies' tones; to watch the exploits of d
open-air magician, acrobat and hypnotist; to admire the stone-breakers' performance; u
to run when one sees others running, stop when one wants, sit down whenever one b
desires, Lord, what pleasure! And this is the life of the badauJ!
Tell me, you sad, censorious moralists, are there many lives to compare with this? Ii
Here I would willingly begin by setting out the theory of jlanerie; but what tt
distinguishes this theory from all others is that it does not and cannot exist. The D
amiable science of jlanerie is instinctively known to its initiates; engraved upon its til
banner we read the magic inscription of the Abbaye de Thileme: 'Do as you wish'. 1 to