Charles Baudelaire (1821-67) from The Painter of Modern Life*

Baudelaire was an influential 19th century poet and critic who hung out with the likes of artists such as Eugene Delacroix and Edouard Manet. The Painter of the Modern Life talks about the timelessness versus circumstantiality of beauty, and the worldly childishness of the genius artist. He observes "The child sees everything in a state of newness; he is always drunk... But genius is nothing more nor less than childhood recovered at will- a childhood now equipped for self-expression with manhood's capacities and a power of analysis which enables it to order the mass of raw material which it has involuntarily accumulated." Is this not genius? Think of how children always say the funniest things: seeing the world through fresh eyes allows them to examine it without the restraint of pre-conceived notions. The goal of an artist is often times to create a work through similar vision- depicting things in a fresh way so that the viewer can consider it with that same freedom and excitement.

*The Painter of Modern Life and other Essays, London: Phaidon, 1964.