Art & Architecture
Introduction
The work of Charles Baudelaire had a significant contribution on the concept of modernism particularly in his essay “The Painter of Modern Life”. Baudelaire’s influence on modernism was constructed from his criticism of art and urban space where he seeks for inherent beauty within the bustling landscape and transitional urban spaces. Before the publication of his work, Paris, France is undergoing a major industrialization phase, which served as a theatre for Baudelaire to redefine the context of modernism conveyed in his controversial verse (Tuman, 2010). The discussion explores the conception of urban modernism including the ways in which the two subsequent art movements attempted to create an art of the streets. Furthermore, the discussion will draw the concept of modernism from literatures and a work of art that represents the context of urban modernism.
Baudelaire’s Conception of Urban Modernism
In the “Painter of Modern Life” Baudelaire called upon the modern artists to leave the confines of the academic walls and museums in order to take inspiration of the outside world particularly from life in streets. This implied meaning is apparent in his description of the crowd as a domain of artistic inspiration just like the modern artist Constantin Guy who is the main point of the essay. Marinetti (1909) in the Futurist Manifesto also described how artists are haunting the museums and the academies on a daily basis (Boyer and Kirshner, 1987). Since the debut of Édouard Manet as an artist of scandal, Baudelaire had nebulous concern about the evolving techniques in art and such concern became an urgent circumstance that he needs take in order to redefine the concept of what is referred to as modern. The conception of urban modernism was transcribed in the works of Manet where Venus is represented as a courtesan in the modern context, or how nude becomes the demean. In one way or another, the example of Manet in the conceptualization of modernism from his work on Salon des Réfusés transcends to The Painter of Modern Life in which Constantin Guy represents an artist that demonstrates the concept of urban modernism.
In describing Guy as a new modern artist, Baudelaire (1863) stated, “just as the air is the bird’s and water that of the fish. His passion and his profession is to merge with the crowd. For the perfect idler, for the passionate observer it becomes an immense source of enjoyment to establish his dwelling in the throng, in the ebb and flow, the bustle, the fleeting, the infinite” (Mayne, 1995, p. 87). This particular statement also demonstrates Baudelaire’s concept of urban modernism observed from how the bustle, the fleeting, and the infinite can be established as a source of enjoyment and inspiration. Baudelaire conceived the context of urban space from Guy’s perception as being an observer, a wanderer, the painter of passing moment, and capturing every suggestion of circumstances. In this sense, Baudelaire’s sense of urban modernism is the capability to carefully observe the details of beauty and the splendor of the world (Marinetti in Boyer and Goldstein, 1987, p. 9), amidst the chaos of the infinite crowd, the fleeting, the ebb and the flow, and capture such element of beauty in a manner of sketches.
Baudelaire persistently pointed out that the manner of discovering the urban modernity in art is to be Flâneur or an idler, or incognito that fades into the crowd unnoticed. Because of the necessity to capture the life emanating from the urban landscape, primitive scribbles much like the drawings of a child or a barbarian emerge as not primarily art, but a revealing curiosity of a man of the world. Furthermore, Baudelaire (1863) asserts that the rights and privileges provided by circumstances and afforded by our originality are inherent of the stamp that time has imprinted upon out sensibilities (Mayne, 1995, p. 88). Drawing upon the statement, it is apparent that the conception of urban modernism emerged from the views of the contingent, the fugitive, the ephemeral, and the other half of art that is immutable and eternal.
There is a transitory element of rapid metamorphoses founded in the conception of modernity as Baudelaire defined and illustrated by presenting the evidence of crowd in his poetry. Another important evidence of the conception of urban modernism discussed by Baudelaire is the dandy, which is a hero captured by Guy as it emerges in the urban scene. Dandyism can be described as alluding to the receding cynicism of fading specie amidst the inevitable change, which meant that the face of urban modernism is the boundary between the old and the new; where the old slowly fades into the oblivion while the new engulfs the remains of the once prominent tradition. According to Turman (2010), Baudelaire’s conception of urban modernism is the result of contemplating on the transition between the old Paris and the new Paris in which the combination constitutes a myth of the eternal and the immutable. This transitory view of the pre-industrial Paris and the emerging cityscape as its new form is considered as the uncommon place of finding beauty and expression of artistic voyeurism.
The Creation of Art of the Streets
The concept of urban modernism as implied by Baudelaire in his work became a contextual foundation of subsequent art movements that attempted to create an art of the streets. It was reiterated by Baudelaire that modernism is the way of an artist to capture the beauty of the fleeting, the bustle, ebb, and the flow, which in today’s modern art movements are embodied in several works of art. According to Willette (2010), after The Painter of Modern Life was published in 1863, and with the benefit of hindsight it appears that people can be surprised by how much the modern world today was illustrated in Baudelaire’s work. For example, conceptual is a movement founded on the idea that art is a product of concepts instead of a manifestation of the physical object (Buchloh, 1990). The origin of conceptual art can be traced back to Dada and avant-garde artists of the 20th century such as Marcel Duchamp.
The context of conceptual art encompasses an ability to convey powerful ideas that is often employed as an instrumental vehicle of socio-political commentary. Furthermore, the conceptual art movement downplays the need for artists to have complex sculptural and painterly skills. Hence, the formation of conceptual art movement is about expression of ideas and concepts rather than an exploration of objects for exploration. In relation to Baudelaire’s concept of urban modernism, conceptual art movement does not depend on specific definition of beauty, which is particularly aligned with urban modernism that takes the chaos of the industrialized environment as a source of beauty and the eternal. One example of the famous works in the conceptual art movement is Yves Klein’s “Le Saut dans le vide” in 1960.
What makes the work of Klein resembles the concept of urban modernism is the fact that the conceptual inspiration of the artwork is beyond the traditions of the older movements, and partly because the approach in the piece and the medium of capturing the image is part of modernity. The expression of nothingness in the work of Klein against the rough background emphasizes the observant approach of the artist in demonstrating the art of the streets that resembles the same approach described by Baudelaire. Another example of an art movement that demonstrates the concept of urban modernism is Graffiti Art, which at the beginning of 1970s and 1980s was described as nuisance and a form of vandalism. It was until the introduction of artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat that graffiti was recognized as a legitimate postmodernist art that conveys the struggles of urban minorities (Visual Arts Cork, N. D.).
In relation to the concept of urban modernism, the work of Basquiat encompasses the idea of expressing thoughts and emotions about the socio-political ideologies in the modern urban setting. According to Baudelaire’s concept, the Flâneur or stroller, the idler, and the observer draws the perception of the eternal from immersing into the crowd and become the man of the world who observes the urban space (Turman, 2010). In the contemporary art movement where graffiti is a categorical element, the observer and the idler could express his views of the urban space in abstract and non-figurative illustrations. This means sketching and scribbling like a barbarian or a child with the object of describing the sense of changing landscape of the urban space. This context of modernism is apparent in the work of Basquiat in an attempt to create street art as a mainstream movement that poses no limits on the extent of expressing ideas about the observable urban space.
Conclusion
Charles Baudelaire have articulated his concept of urban modernism in The Painter of Modern Life based on the views of an urban observer and the manner of capturing the eternal beauty from the fleeting and the bustling by Constantin Guy. The concept simply emphasizes that an urban space can be an inspiration of beauty for artists, which became apparent in the way that the subsequent art movements are attempting to create the art of streets. Artists such as Klein and Basquiat demonstrates in their art pieces that there is no definite skills in art, but rather having a wide perspective of what the urban space has to offer in terms of aesthetics and eternal elements of change. In addition, Baudelaire emphasizes the importance of being one with the crowd in order to understand the hidden intricacies of the urban space. The concept of modernism is not only limited to the transition between the old and the new, but also the capacity to see things from another perspective.
References
Basquiat, J. M. (1984). Untitled skull [Painting]. Retrieved from https://www.artexpertswebsite.com/pages/artists/basquiat.php
Buchloh, B. H. (1990). Conceptual Art 1962-1969: From the Aesthetic of Administration to the Critique of Institutions. October, 55, 105-143. doi:10.2307/778941
Klein, Y. (1960). Leap into the void [Photograph]. Retrieved from http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/1992.5112/
Marinetti, F. (1987). The Futurist Manifesto. In J. Boyer & J. Kirshner, Mentalities on the eve of the great war (1st ed., pp. 9-11). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago.
Mayne, J., & Baudelaire, C. (1995). Chapter1: The painter of modern life. In The painter of modern life (pp. 84-87). London, UK: Phaidon Press.
Turman, K. (2010). Modern transitions in 19th Century Paris: Baudelaire and Renoir. Paroles gelées, 26(1), 1-12. Retrieved from http://escholarship.org/uc/item/96b0x72c
Visual Arts Cork. (n.d.). Contemporary Art Movements (1970-present). Retrieved from http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/contemporary-art-movements.htm#graffiti
Willette, J. (2010, August 27). Baudelaire and “The Painter of Modern Life”. Retrieved from http://arthistoryunstuffed.com/baudelaire-the-painter-of-modern-life/
