Manet, Flâneur and Modern Painter Against Baudelaire’s Opinion
- Art d'Histoire
- May 28
- 4 min read
In the context of the 1830s-1840s, a figure unique to Paris was born, inseparable from the birth of modernity: that of the flâneur, the stroller with an awakened gaze, perhaps ironic and somewhat dilettantish, for having neither goal nor profession.
Yet, in Charles Baudelaire, this flâneur becomes the archetype of the modern artist, the one who observes, records, and aestheticises his era.
The Sociology of the Flâneur
Physiologies were in fashion in the mid-nineteenth century. Among them were those that defined and illustrated in several volumes the types of French people, categorised according to their profession and their province: Les Français peints par eux-mêmes. The 1841 edition dedicated several pages to defining a certain urban walker, the flâneur.
The flâneur is a man in the prime of life, between twenty-five and sixty years old, because the activity requires full possession of one's physical and intellectual capacities.
We also learn that the flâneur belongs to an exclusively Parisian sociological type. The surveyor of the provinces is relegated to the rank of a simple, pitiful dreamer, incapable of claiming this status.
Unlike the tourist who traverses the city in haste, without grasping its nuances, or the ordinary passer-by, often described as a badaud, the true flâneur is distinguished by a subtle intelligence and a constant attention. This difference in acuity is likened to that which separates the high gastronome from the simple glutton, as one may read.
The individual, writes Auguste de Lacroix, voluntarily restricts his perimeter of action, finding within a circumscribed space—a street, a park, a neighborhood at most—inexhaustible material that will nourish his daily reflection. He thus reaps riches where the common gaze perceives only the surface of things.
From the Street to the Canvas: The Sketch of Manners
With Baudelaire, this particular disposition for scrutinising the city is not confined to a sociology of wandering; it infiltrates the person of the artist and determines their degree of modernity.
The argument is presented in an article in Le Figaro, published in the autumn of 1863: "The Painter of Modern Life," insisting on the importance of what he calls the sketch of manners (croquis de mœurs).
It is a matter of a rapid sketch, capable of capturing the palpitations and curiosities of Paris, and not a meticulous panorama. The execution is more spontaneous, almost stenographic, the touch or the line competing in speed with the movement of the street.
The Flâneur as Alchemist of Art
The flâneur-creator, as Baudelaire describes him, is that alchemist capable of extracting modernity from the street, of isolating its poetic and historical dimension, concealed beneath the ephemeral appearance of fashion phenomena.
The artist filters reality; his creation will be modern if he makes the eternal spring from the transitory, if he proves capable of transmuting the common, or even the stercoraceous, into artistic gold.
This poetry or modern art brought scenes of everyday life into the great history of art, much to the chagrin of those who criticised this school of ugliness, forgetful of academic precepts and ideals. The Apollo of the street perhaps needed a few orthopaedic crutches.
Guys versus Manet
Against all expectations, it is not Édouard Manet but a certain Constantin Guys whom he considers the archetype of this modern painter. The man was, however, quite old, over sixty. Perhaps a feeling of jealousy prevented the poet from publicly crowning the young Manet.
And this is all the more curious since the painter of Olympia, having complained to Baudelaire about the catastrophic reception of his canvas at the Salon, received as a response from the poet—"unceremoniously" exiled in Brussels:
"you are only the first in the decrepitude of your art"
Words that could be interpreted as a compliment, especially since the motif par excellence of this modern painting as defined in 1863 by Baudelaire was the prostitute, of whom Manet had just rendered the most provocative and, precisely, the most modern image—judging by the harsh criticism, he had been her Venus from the depths of the geography of Parisian brothels, at Paul Niquet's!
But it is 1865, Baudelaire's text dates from 1863, and in 1863 Manet was causing a scandal with his Bain, known today as Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe, which is not at first glance a scene glimpsed in the Bois de Boulogne.
The memoirs of Antonin Proust, published in 1913, recount a Manet who was an impenitent walker-scrutiniser-flâneur: when winter fogs made the light and studio work impossible, the artist moved his field of study toward the outer boulevards, which he surveyed with his gaze:
"In Manet, the eye played such a great role that Paris has never known a flâneur like him, nor a flâneur strolling more usefully."
He was that Baudelairean artist who, according to Baudelaire’s definition of the modern artist, merged into the multitude with the same naturalness as a bird moving through the air or a fish in the water.
If, as Baudelaire defines it, his primary objective is to embrace the tumult of the metropolis while preserving absolute anonymity, transforming into an incognito prince, experiencing infinite joy in being at the center of the agitation without ever revealing himself, except through his painting, then yes, Manet was one of those and strolled usefully, to paraphrase Proust.
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