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Painted Poetry

Colour in Baudelaire’s Art Criticism

by Ann Kennedy Smith (Author)
©2011 Monographs XII, 241 Pages
Series: Modern French Identities, Volume 63

Summary

Before becoming a poet, Charles Baudelaire was an art critic; and he made his literary début with the Salon de 1845. Its failure to find a receptive audience led him to write the groundbreaking Salon de 1846 with its pivotal chapter on colour, in which Baudelaire challenged fundamental critical concepts of art by insisting on colour’s complexity, expressivity and modernity. Through a close reading of his critical essays on art, this book examines how Baudelaire’s thoughts on colour developed throughout his life and sets them in the context of traditional views of colour. What effect did the new scientific theories of colour harmony, filtered through his conversations with Delacroix and other artists, have on Baudelaire? Why did he see Daumier as a colourist, but not Ingres? What made him turn his back on French art in 1859 and which artist changed his mind? Baudelaire’s interest in a highly personal form of colour symbolism is investigated, as well as the part that colour plays in developing his later, central idea of a creative and poetic imagination capable of translating all the arts.

Details

Pages
XII, 241
Publication Year
2011
ISBN (PDF)
9783035301052
ISBN (Softcover)
9783039110940
DOI
10.3726/978-3-0353-0105-2
Language
English
Publication date
2011 (April)
Keywords
Charles Baudelaire poet, art critic new theories on colour colour symbolism in his essays and poetry
Published
Oxford, Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, Frankfurt am Main, New York, Wien, 2011. XII, 241 pp.

Biographical notes

Ann Kennedy Smith (Author)

Ann Kennedy Smith is a graduate of Trinity College Dublin and wrote her doctoral thesis on Baudelaire’s art criticism at the University of Cambridge. She lives in Cambridge and works as a freelance editor and tutor for the Institute of Continuing Education at the University of Cambridge and the Workers’ Educational Association.

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Title: Painted Poetry