Baudelaire was a French poet, translator, essayist and art critic. His comments on art emphasises its importance to capture the fleeting experiences and moments, specifically in evolving urban areas and eventually coined the term ‘modernity’.
“By ‘modernity’ I mean the ephemeral, the fugitive, the contingent, the half of art whose other half is the eternal and immutable…This transitory, fugitive element, whose metamorphoses are so rapid, must on no account be despised or dispensed with. By neglecting it, you cannot fail to tumble into the abyss of an abstract and indeterminate beauty, like that of the time the first woman before the fall of man.” – Baudelaire, ‘The Painter Of Modern Life’
I find this a very beautiful concept, encouraging artists to respond directly to the world and eviroments around them in very much the present moment with little other thought and information. Both him and Schiller refer to a ‘childhood artist’/ a ‘niave artist’ and also comments on ( to paraphrase) a genius being one who has a ‘childhood recovered.’I believe that in many ways this is something I have developed most with as an artist, learning that drawing inspiration and artistic strength from my creativity as a child is not immature but rather a great tool for both life and for creating pieces and events I am truly pleased with. As a child I would us shells on the beach and pieces of wood to create huge scale pictures and scultpures across the sand and wait to watch them get washed away. I would use string to draw in multple ways and make sculptures out of scrunched up paper. I would draw around the clock just because I wanted too, not because I felt I had to have everything perfect and in a specific way. I would make funny fake computers and books out of tin foil and old cereal boxes and was just constantly, constanly, using everything I could to indulge my free creative mind. The time I have been most frustrated with my art is the times when I have felt I must comply to a specific style and media forever just because and instituion told me so. When they started showing me ‘real art’ ass black and white drawing and nothing else. Use a ruler. Rub out all your mistakes. Don’t draw like that, draw like this! Somewhere along the way that sense of wonder and creativity wass lost from childhood yet slowy I have learnt to undo these things and embrace that which was antural in childhood and my work has only grown since, and so when Baudelaire talks about a true artist embracing childhood I can understand the importance of why he thought this.
Additionally this idea encourages us to just look and focus on what we see. Forgeet about the contexts for a moment in what/where and how we want to inform our work with such as political and social issues and instead take time to think about the literal. What do we see. What do we smell. What is the scale of it. What are the colours within it. What does it look like. Describe the literal and when creating take time to think of only the literal.
http://arthistoryunstuffed.com/baudelaire-the-painter-of-modern-life/
https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/13847.Charles_Baudelaire
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modernity
Bea Kilduff 