He wrote: "Manet has never seen Goya,
never El Greco; he was never in the Pourtales Gallery.
never El Greco; he was never in the Pourtales Gallery.
Baudelaire - Poems and Prose Poems
Baudelaire was as
conscientious as Gautier. He trotted around miles of mediocre canvas,
saying an encouraging word to the less talented, boiling over with holy
indignation or indulging in glacial irony, before the rash usurpers
occupying the seats of the mighty, and pouncing on new genius with
promptitude. Upon Delacroix he lavished the largesse of his admiration.
He smiled at the platitudes of Horace Vernet, and only shook his head
over the Schnetzes and other artisans of the day. He welcomed William
Hausollier, now so little known. He praised Deveria, Chasseriau--who
waited years before he came into his own; his preferred landscapists
were Corot, Rousseau and Troyon. He impolitely spoke of Ary Scheffer and
the "apes of sentiment"; while his discussions of Hogarth, Cruikshank,
Pinelli and Breughel proclaims his versatility of vision. In his essay
Le Peintre de la Vie Moderne he was the first among critics to recognize
the peculiar quality called "modernity," that naked vibration which
informs the novels of Goncourt, Flaubert's L'Education Sentimentale,
and the pictures of Manet, Monet, Degas and Raffaelli with their
evocations of a new, nervous Paris. It is in his Volume III, entitled
L'Art Romantique, that so many things dear to the new century were then
subjects of furious quarrels. This book contains much just and brilliant
writing. It was easy for Nietzsche to praise Wagner in Germany in 1876,
but dangerous at Paris in 1861 to declare war on Wagner's adverse
critics. This Baudelaire did.
The relations of Baudelaire and Edouard Manet were exceedingly cordial.
In a letter to Theophile Thore, the art critic (Letters, p. 361), we
find Baudelaire defending his friend from the accusation that his
pictures were pastiches of Goya.
He wrote: "Manet has never seen Goya,
never El Greco; he was never in the Pourtales Gallery. " Which may have
been true at the time, 1864, nevertheless Manet had visited Madrid and
spent much time studying Velasquez and abusing Spanish cookery.
(Consider, too, Goya's Balcony with Girls and Manet's famous Balcony. )
Raging at the charge of imitation, Baudelaire said in this same epistle:
"They accuse even me of imitating Edgar Poe. . . . Do you know why I so
patiently translated Poe? Because he resembled me. " The poet italicized
these words. With stupefaction, therefore, he admired the mysterious
coincidences of Manet's work with that of Goya and El Greco.
He took Manet seriously. He wrote to him in a paternal and severe tone.
Recall his reproof when urging the painter to exhibit his work. "You
complain about attacks, but are you the first to endure them? Have you
more genius than Chateaubriand and Wagner?
conscientious as Gautier. He trotted around miles of mediocre canvas,
saying an encouraging word to the less talented, boiling over with holy
indignation or indulging in glacial irony, before the rash usurpers
occupying the seats of the mighty, and pouncing on new genius with
promptitude. Upon Delacroix he lavished the largesse of his admiration.
He smiled at the platitudes of Horace Vernet, and only shook his head
over the Schnetzes and other artisans of the day. He welcomed William
Hausollier, now so little known. He praised Deveria, Chasseriau--who
waited years before he came into his own; his preferred landscapists
were Corot, Rousseau and Troyon. He impolitely spoke of Ary Scheffer and
the "apes of sentiment"; while his discussions of Hogarth, Cruikshank,
Pinelli and Breughel proclaims his versatility of vision. In his essay
Le Peintre de la Vie Moderne he was the first among critics to recognize
the peculiar quality called "modernity," that naked vibration which
informs the novels of Goncourt, Flaubert's L'Education Sentimentale,
and the pictures of Manet, Monet, Degas and Raffaelli with their
evocations of a new, nervous Paris. It is in his Volume III, entitled
L'Art Romantique, that so many things dear to the new century were then
subjects of furious quarrels. This book contains much just and brilliant
writing. It was easy for Nietzsche to praise Wagner in Germany in 1876,
but dangerous at Paris in 1861 to declare war on Wagner's adverse
critics. This Baudelaire did.
The relations of Baudelaire and Edouard Manet were exceedingly cordial.
In a letter to Theophile Thore, the art critic (Letters, p. 361), we
find Baudelaire defending his friend from the accusation that his
pictures were pastiches of Goya.
He wrote: "Manet has never seen Goya,
never El Greco; he was never in the Pourtales Gallery. " Which may have
been true at the time, 1864, nevertheless Manet had visited Madrid and
spent much time studying Velasquez and abusing Spanish cookery.
(Consider, too, Goya's Balcony with Girls and Manet's famous Balcony. )
Raging at the charge of imitation, Baudelaire said in this same epistle:
"They accuse even me of imitating Edgar Poe. . . . Do you know why I so
patiently translated Poe? Because he resembled me. " The poet italicized
these words. With stupefaction, therefore, he admired the mysterious
coincidences of Manet's work with that of Goya and El Greco.
He took Manet seriously. He wrote to him in a paternal and severe tone.
Recall his reproof when urging the painter to exhibit his work. "You
complain about attacks, but are you the first to endure them? Have you
more genius than Chateaubriand and Wagner?
