Writings on Art

"I sincerely believe that the best criticism is that which is amusing and poetic; not that cold and algebraic criticism, which, under the pretext of explaining everything, has neither hatred nor love, and deliberately divests itself of all temperament; but rather – a beautiful painting being nature reflected by an artist – that which will be this painting reflected by an intelligent and sensitive mind. [...]

To be just, that is to say, to have its raison d'être, criticism must be partial, passionate, political, that is to say, made from an exclusive point of view, but from the point of view that opens up the most horizons. Baudelaire, thus, is entirely present in these Writings on Art, which are the other side of his work and, indeed, according to his wish, open up many more horizons.

For in these pages, written from 1845 to his last years, we discover not simply the art critic of the Salons, but the theoretician of Romanticism and imagination, of beauty and comedy in art, and ultimately the writer of that modernity which he defines – and which for us begins with him.

Edited by Francis Moulinat.