Baudelaire and Constantin Guys

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Baudelaire and Constantin GuysAuthor(s): J. A. HiddlestonSource: The Modern Language Review, Vol. 90, No. 3 (Jul., 1995), pp. 603-621Published by: Modern Humanities Research AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3734318

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BAUDELAIRE AND CONSTANTIN GUYSIn LePeintrede a viemoderne,audelaireturns his attention once again, as he had inthe essays on laughter and caricature,to a minor art form. The Salondei859, whichincluded a grudging chapteron landscape, had dwelt almost exclusivelyon the highart of the oil on canvas with historical, cultural, or religious subjects, but here heturns to those minor figures whose genius resides in giving expression to what hecalls 'la beaute particuliere,la beaute de circonstance et le traitde moeurs'(p. 683).1The favour that the works of Debucourt and the Saint-Aubin brothers had foundamong some sections of the public has, he claims, done much to mitigate theexclusive preoccupation with the great names of painting, allowing them and manyothers besides to enter into 'le dictionnaire des artistes dignes d'etre etudi6s'(p. 683). Baudelaire mentions no specific works by Debucourt, but it would bereasonable to think that he was acquainted with his Promenadeublique,his en-gravings of le Palais Royal, and the famous gaming-house of Frascati,which figuresin 'Les Petites Vieilles'. It would also be reasonable to believe that though again nospecific works are mentioned, he would have been attracted above all to Gabriel deSaint-Aubin,2 that eccentric 'flaneur' and compulsive draughtsman, who so muchresembled Guys that one might be forgiven for thinking of him as his eighteenth-century double. If in spite of a certain rigidityof execution Debucourt catches wellthe manners of his time, there is in many of Gabriel de Saint-Aubin's works (JeuneFemmemontantncarrosse,a Reunion uboulevard,a Saisiepar 'huissier,ndSpectacleseTuileries,o name but a very few) a movement and spontaneity which seem to denythe contemporarydress of his figuresand endow them with a nineteenth-centuryairof immediacy and modernity. However that may be, it is not the past that interestsBaudelaire in the first two chaptersof Le Peintre e la viemoderne.Typically perhaps,he uses it merely as ajustification forhis interest in the presentand in the depictionof contemporarymanners. Since man shows his idea of the beautiful in his attire,hisgestures, and even his features, the engravings of fashion at the time of theRevolution and the Consulate, for example, reveal beyond their bizarreness 'lamorale et l'esthetique du temps' (p. 684). Similarly, the contemporary'croquis demceurs' is by no means superficial, but gives access to an understanding of themodern age. The artist who depicts modern manners may be working in a minorgenre and medium, but he is none the less endowed with genius, though this geniusmay be of a mixed nature, since it comprises a considerable element of 'espritlitteraire'. The modern era can boast such monuments as Gavarni and Daumier,whose works have been described as complementing La Comedieumaine. o themcan be added such names as Deveria, Maurin, Numa, Tassaert, Lami, Trimolet,and Travies. The painter of manners is in varying degrees all or several of thefollowing: observer, 'flaneur', philosopher, 'moraliste', poet, or novelist. However

1 References in the text are to Baudelaire, (Euvres ompletes,d. by Claude Pichois, 2 vols (Paris:Gallimard, I975-76), henceforth OC. For Le Peintredela viemoderne,ee ii, 683-724. Unless otherwiseindicated, all page referencesin the text are to Volume in.2 Of the Saint-Aubin familyit was Gabriel (1724-80) who was most likelyto appeal to Baudelaire. LikeGuys, he too was 'fou de dessin', the creator of hundreds of rapid sketchesof contemporary Paris life,bearingvery often such notes as 'fait en marchant', 'fait au lit', 'vue du Palais Bourbon,4 7bre,a 8 heuresdu soir', and showing street scenes, public gardens, buildings, shops, 'guingettes', clubs, auctions,bailiffs, and even an execution.


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Baudelaire ndConstantinGuyswe choose to describehim, Baudelaire is clear that we shall dub him with an epithetwhich could not be given to the 'peintre des choses eternelles [...] des chosesher6iques ou religieuses' (p. 687). The referenceto heroic subjects is highly signifi-cant. At the end of the Salons f 1845and 1846,Baudelaire had made a plea fora newkind ofart, capable ofshowing the heroism ofmodernlife and the extent to which weare 'grandset poetiques dans nos cravateset nos bottes vernies' (p. 407). But now inthe essay on Guys his preoccupationis no longer with the heroic but only with themanners and particularitiesof modern life.Le Peintrede la viemodernes assuredly a homage to Guys, but it is a homage of apeculiar kind, very different from Baudelaire's essays on Delacroix. Guys, that'ouragan de modestie'3 as Baudelaire called him, had wished to remain totallyanonymous and is referred to throughout simply as M.G. Five of the thirteensections (that is, just short of half of the pages of the essay), are devoted toconsiderations of a general aesthetic kind, and from Chapter 8 to the end thediscussion focuseson Guys's themes and types, but again in generalterms with veryfew referencesto specific and identifiable drawings. It is only in Chapters 6 and 7,entitled 'Les Annales de la guerre' and 'Pompes et solennites', that having com-pleted the theoretical introduction, Baudelaire names particularworks and com-ments on their essential and characteristicfeatures. For this reason, it might seemappropriateto begin this study with a considerationof the drawingsof the CrimeanWarand of theirimpact, and deal with the theoretical considerations as they arise inrelationshipto individual works.The wood engravingsof the war which appearedin the Illustrated ondon ewsgivea poor idea of Guys's talent as an artist. If one were unacquainted with his originaldrawings, they would provide an uninspiring introduction to his work. When theyare set side by side with Baudelaire's commentary,one is immediatelyaware of sucha dispiriting discrepancy between theflatnessand lack of dramaof the printsand hisenthusiasm for them as a sourceof suggestions that one is inclined to suspect him ofusing an artist of mediocre merit as a pretext to set offhis own greater imaginationand creativity. The engravingswere not, of course, the work of Guys, but were donein the officesof the Illustrated ondon ews rom sketches sent by him from the MiddleEast and the Crimea where he was war correspondentfor the journal. Unfortu-nately, many of the originals were lost or destroyed by the engravers and in thebombing of the building in I94I.4 The engravings are not, however, withoutinterest, for, though they may not be a good introduction, they do provide aconvenient and highly instructivepoint of departurefor an understandingof his art.By comparing them with the drawings which have urvived, it is possible to gain arapid and instructive insight into his originalityand into what it was that made himsuigeneris. t springs immediately to the eye that what the engravershave done is tomake the drawings more like photographs, by flattening the perspective, filling inminor detail, and removing much of the drama and movement from the scenes: inshort, by imposing a bland and documentary realism upon a highly imaginative,suggestive, and on occasions disturbing visual experience.

3 Baudelaire, Correspondance,d. by Claude Pichois, 2 vols (Paris:Gallimard, 1973), i, 639, henceforthCorr.4 PierreDuflo, Constantin uys Paris:Arnaud Seydoux, 1988), p. 52.

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J. A. HIDDLESTONFigure I (p. 606) shows one example5not directlymentioned by Baudelaire. TheILN of 17 March 1855 contains an engraving entitled TurksConveyingheSick to

Balaclava. t is intended to convey, in the words of the artisthimself, 'une des visionsles plus dechirantes', that of seeing these unfortunatebrothers n armscarriedon theshoulders of their comrades, who often have to pay dearlyfortheircompassion andwho may never manage to return to camp. On the whole the engravershave caughtthe suffering of the scene, but the effect is mild compared to that of the originaldrawing, in which the soldiers bearing their wounded comrades on their hunchedbacks areportrayedmuch moredramaticallyand poignantly in black inkas massivegrotesque shapes, greatcoat upon greatcoat. The emphasis is entirely upon theirposture and awkward movement, whereas in the engraving there is a considerableeffort to particularize the figures in the foreground and to give them individualphysiognomies. The exhausted soldiersittingon the leftstaringdisconsolatelyat theground, which he no doubt sees as his resting-place,is portrayedin the drawing asan anonymous object, a shapeless bundle of clothing and equipment which has lostall but a distant semblance of a human being. The dying horse which occupies themiddle ground in the engraving is placed significantly on the same level as thesoldier,while crowding the sky in a mannerworthyof Meryonan enormousflightofblack birds,barelyperceptiblein the engravingwherethey have a purelydecorativefunction, menacingly invades the scene, hungryfor theirprey. Of this sombrework,Grappe wrote: 'Lejour ou il peignit le convoi des blesses dans les Balkans, dominepar le grand vol sinistre et tournoyant des corbeaux, il accomplit une oeuvreadmirable, puissante et large. II quitta l'anecdote et atteignit au plus grand art'.6But the one technical device which most distinguishes the drawing from theengraving is the foreshorteningof the perspectiveand the way the figures,instead ofbeing set back at a safedistance, are made to appearto surgeforthfrom the space ofthe picture, creating the effect of an assault upon the eye of the spectator and aninvasion of his mental and emotional space. This is an effect which Guys uses sofrequentlythat it can safelybe said to be one of the most characteristicof his work.Invery many of his drawings it is above all through the manipulation of perspectivetogether with the suddenness of the foregrounding that the sense of the bizarre ispushed to the point of the surreal, so that they take on a dream-like or evennightmarish quality, as we become aware of what Baudelaireenthusiasticallycallsthe figures' 'explosion lumineuse dans l'espace' (p. 700).Another more tranquil but no less eloquent example would be LordRaglan'sHeadquarterst Balaclava Fig. 2, p. 607). In the engraving the presentationof spaceand perspective is geometric and without intensity. The elevations and proportionsof the buildings are faithfullyrenderedfrom an objective point of view; the housesand tents on the hill on the right of the picture obediently conform to the laws ofperspective and do not violate the 'lignes de fuite'. The trees on either side of thepicture and the mast of the ship which separatesthem stand obediently at the sameheight, while all sorts of details are added, and the individual figures, togetherwiththe oxen on the right of the picture, are clearly delineated amid the crowd of which

5 I am deeply grateful to the Editions Arnaud Seydoux for permission to reproducedrawings fromPierre Duflo's Constantin uys:TurksConveyingheSick oBalaclava,pp. 266-67; LordRaglan'sHeadquarters,pp. 206-07; CaptainPonsonby iding ntoAlexandria,. 329; Consdcration'un errainunibrea Scutari, . 305.6 Georges Grappe, 'ConstantinGuys', L'Artetle beau,4.I (I907), 34.

605


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6o6 BaudelairendConstantin uys

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Fig. i. Turks conveying the sick to Balaclavas;P'

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J. A. HIDDLESTON

Fig. 2. Lord Raglan'shead-quarters,at Balaclava

607

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608 Baudelaire ndConstantin uysthey none the less form a part. Everything is clearly visible, there being nouncertainties, and above all no spur to the imagination. By contrast, the sketch isdramatic, bizarre, and even humorous. What strikes the eye immediately is thelooming, menacing presence of the five huge trees in the backgroundwhich, risingschematically in an inky blackness seem disproportionatein height and mass. Likethe building on the left, whose dark elevations and especially its 'lignes de fuite'towards the ship are greatly exaggerated, they serve to dwarf both the humanactivity in the foreground and the ship itself in the background, which seemsstrangely to rise out of the land rather than the sea, creating a kind of visualmetaphorreminiscent ofElstir's PortdeCarquethuitnA la recherchee emps erdu.7 hehill on the right,with its chaoticallyscatteredhouses, rises much moreabruptlythanin the print, while the tall, slender, horses and riders in the foreground, barelyoutlined and lacking arm, leg, or hoof, are merely suggested by a few rapid strokes.The humorous elements arerelegatedto the extremeleft and rightof the scene in thestrange, exotic, and snooty posture of the camels, and the totally grotesque andhyperbolicox whose head resembles somewhat that of a lion, but one with a humanexpressionwhich appears both curiously perplexedand good-natured.This sense of exaggerationand of the bizarreis often very powerfulindeed, as inthe astonishing watercolour (Fig. 3, p. 609), which must count among the finest ofhis production, showing Captain Ponsonby and Guys himself riding on donkeyspreceded by their negro runner, arm and baton dramatically outstretched topreparetheirway through the streets of Alexandria. Here is how Guys describestheevent:Surgissant elagrand-place 'Alexandrie,ousprimes,e capitainePonsonby tmoi, arueprincipale, r6ecdes 'ungrandnegreathletique, nesortede Mercure. Iportaitune onguechemise ansmanches, onseulvetement, t brandissait n lourdbatonau-dessus e satetecommeunavertissementuxpassants t aux cavaliers enanten sensopposequ'ilsaientadegagerdevantnous e chemin.Nousetionsescortesd'une ribudegaminshabillesde memefaSonque le negre, certains noirs, d'autres olive; ils fouettaient nos pauvres petits anes avecune energiesi impitoyable queje souhaitais vraiment l'intervention de quelquemembre de laSociete protectricedes animaux. Unjeune garcon de mine eveillee, d'alluregracieuse, nousprecede a dos d'ane, servant d'interprete, se retournant continuellement vers nous, expli-quant tout ce qu'il voit, que cela nous interesse ou non, successivement en cinqou six langues.(Duflo, p. 328)Apart from two minarets of mosques in the background, the architecture of flats andconsulates could belong to any part of France, Spain, or Italy. The exoticism andstrangeness are in the use of perspective and in the posture and movement of thefigures. A touch of local colour is rendered by a group of three Arabs, barelyoutlined, sitting smoking on the square on the left margin of the picture, but theviewer's eye is immediately drawn to the negro and the riders in the centre. Whatfascinates above all is the sense of movement given by these figures and the bizarreinter-relationship of the forms; the disproportionately long and slender figures ofGuys and Ponsonby perched and leaning intently forward on the bravely trottingdonkeys, the much smaller figure of the interpreter/guide in front turned three-quarters in their direction to engage their attention, the diminutive little boys,totally out of perspective, running behind and alongside the main group with raisedwhips, and most astonishing of all the magnificent hugely magnified black runner,

7 Marcel Proust,A la rechercheutemps erdu,3 vols (Paris:Gallimard, I954), I, 836.


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Fig.3. CaptainPonsonby iding n Alexandria

right of centre of the picture in full flight, poised upon his arched right foot andleaning forwardwith his baton at arm's length above his head, looking indeed likesome kind of Oriental orAfricanmessengerof thegods. To the right,andformingbyway of a contrast which is not without a hint of wry irony an almost separateself-containedpicture in much strongercolours, a group of three Arab women, onebehind the other, in full Oriental garb, surgesvoluminously into the foreground n amannerthat is very similar to the Turkishwoman with a parasolin a pictureknownto have belonged to Baudelaire's mother (see Duflo, p. 79), and progressesthroughthe streets, heedless of the passage of the prestigious Europeans.What characterizes all these drawings is the element of surprise. Nowhere is itmore noticeable than in two ofGuys's most extraordinaryworks,A traversesBalkansand Par lesBalkans,which I mention here in order to give some impression of therange of his style and technique. Unlike the other Crimean works, their docu-mentary and anecdotal function is minimal in the first and non-existent in thesecond, and this is no doubt why the engravingwhich appearsto have been based onthem bears only a remote resemblanceto the originals (see Duflo, pp. I6o-62). Thefirst,in inkand watercolour,shows three ridersand two packhorses,followedon theright by what could be two officers also on horseback making their way throughsnow along a trackin dimly sketchedand featurelessmountains. The impressionisof the openness of the space, with nothing more than a hint of the difficultyof theconditions and of the terrain. In the second, which may be a preparatorystudy forthe first, the stylization has been pushed to the limits of the figurative, as in somekind ofJapanese wash. As with Giacometti's sculpturesor some Zen drawings, onehas the sense less of the figures surging forth from space than of the way in whichspace seems to threaten and to deny their presence. It is a startlingexample of theway in which the most tenuous 'ebauche' can be a rich source of reverie andsuggestion.

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Baudelaire nd Constantin uysThere can be little doubt that Baudelaire was aware of these various features of

Guys's work that make him worthyof attention and admiration;but what is strangeis that he says next to nothing about them apart from their explosive effect. In thethreepages on 'Les Annales de la guerre'he is content to allude to a host of drawings,picking out particular aspects of their subject-matter and occasion: the coffee-drinking and long hooka-like pipes at Omer-Pacha's, the bizarre Kurdish troops,the Bashi-bazouks with their Hungarian or Polish officers, the robust figure ofCanrobertlooking over the sinister battlefield at Inkerman, 'taken on the spot', theartist himself amid the dead at Inkerman with his horse smelling at the bodies,Achmet-Pacha receiving two European officers, the field ambulances and thewounded, the hospital at Pera, the camels, Tartars, and the munitions, togetherwith all the heteroclite impedimenta and clutter of war. Even the historic chargeofthe Light Brigade gets only a mention for the speedof the charge,the smoke from theartillery,and the landscape blocked by the green hills at the end of the valley.Two scenes, however, are made to stand out fromthe others, being given severallines instead ofjust a fleeting reference. Both are what Baudelaire calls 'religious'pictures providing an implied contrast with the violence and hurly-burlyof battle;but Baudelaire is very restrictivein his choice of features to comment on, concentra-ting on the picturesque or the sense of disproportionor strangeness.In one of them,which can easily be identified as Divine Service nSundayMorningbeforeBalaclava(Duflo, p. 294), he mentions only the central feature of the priest reading the Bibleon an improvised lectern of three drums, in front of the diverse English regiments,with the kilted Scottish soldiers standing out picturesquely.There is no mention ofthe tents and Oriental troops in the background, or the sense of space and exilecreated by the landscape rising dramatically up into the high mountain and thenplunging away into the distance beyond in a way which might be thought remi-niscent of that great poem of exile by Delacroix, Ovide hez esScythesp. 635).

m ImW-v. _--Fig.4. Consecration fa BurialGround tScutaribytheBishopof Gibraltar

The other religious drawing to which Baudelaire this time devotes a wholeparagraphis Consecrationfa BurialGroundt Scutari y heBishopofGibraltar, hich hesees as suggestive and great with reverie:'Le caracterepittoresquede la scene, qui

6io


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J. A. HIDDLESTONconsiste dans le contrastede la natureorientale environnanteavec les attitudes et lesuniformesoccidentaux des assistants, est rendu d'une maniere saisissante, sugges-tive et grosse de reveries' (p. 701). He goes on to evoke the officerswith their 'airsineffacablesde gentlemen,esolus et discrets'which they take to the furthermostpartsof the globe, the Anglican priests looking like 'huissiers' or 'agents de change', butnowhere does he state what exactly the suggestive quality of the scene is, leaving itno doubt on purpose to the imagination of the reader orof the spectator.One mightrespond to the implied if not explicit invitation and observe that in addition to thebizarrejuxtapositionof east andwest, there is also an impressionofdepth and space,emphasizing the isolation of the little group,its vulnerabilityand senseofexile, set asthey are on the water's edge with Constantinople, its mosques and minarets, in thebackground. But more than that, for those acquainted with Baudelaire's mentaluniverse, this reverieon exile finds an analogue in his poetry, and as a result thesesoldiers in a foreign land, standing impassively before the rows of coffins of theirfallencomrades (which Baudelaire does not even allude to and which, curiously,arebarelypresentin the engraving,while in thedrawingtheyform twoominous rows onthe left), appeartojoin those other 'depayses'in frontof danger, failure, illness, anddeath in Baudelaire's poetic universe: 'la negresse, amaigrie et phtisique' of 'LeCygne' and those who 'tetent la Douleur comme une bonne louve'. And so it is thatfrom this modest drawing memory sounds 'a plein souffle du cor' as we are made tothink of the 'matelots oublies dans une lie, Aux captifs, aux vaincus ... a biend'autres encor ' (OC,I, 87).The section on 'Pompes et solennites' has much in common with the previousoneon the war. Baudelairealludes in passing to varioussights that had struckthe artist'seye in the East, in Greece, and in Paris, giving once again, particularly in theparagraph devoted to Turkey, the impression that he himself is going through analbum, picking out for the reader features which are characteristic, outlandish, ormemorablein one way or another. In one verylong sentence, coveringjust short of awhole page, and in a 'telegram' style chosen to convey the manner in which hisattention has been seized by a host of haphazard perceptions, he mentions thefestivals at Bairan, the ceremonies in front of the mosques, the obese Turkish civilservants, 'veritablescaricatures de decadence' astride their horses labouring undertheir weight, the carriages with the oriental women peeping out of the windowsthrough theirveils, the contrastingattractionof women of many different nationali-ties with their exotic dress, and most intriguing of all the frenetic dancing of theheavily made-up tumblersof the 'troisieme sexe' with theirflowingrobes, convulsiveand hysterical gestures, and long hair floatingdown their backs (p. 704).As an example of Guys's genius in conveying thesolemnityof officialoccasions, hedevotes another paragraph to Lafete commemorativeel'independanceans a cathedraled'AthenesDuflo, p. 169), drawing attention to the way that each of the tiny figuresisrepresented with his or her own individuality. Among the various 'portraits', hesingles out the king and queen, the patriarch with his tiny eyes behind his greenspectacles, and, most curious of all because of the 'bizarrerie de sa physionomie', aGerman lady of the court attached to the service of the queen. What captures hisattention is the strangeness of the Orthodox Church, the various national dresses,and more than anything else the immense space of the cathedral and the manipula-tion of perspective. Guys has executed this drawing of a solemn occasion not coldlyas some artists do as a lucrative 'corvee', 'mais avec toute l'ardeur d'un homme epris


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6I2 Baudelaire nd Constantin uysd'espace, de perspective, de lumiere faisant nappe ou explosion, et s'accrochant engouttes ou en etincelles aux asperitesdes uniformes et des toilettes de cour' (p. 705).

Baudelaire's admiration for La LogedeI'Empereur8s similarly motivated by therepresentationof space which he describes in a manner which is both enthusiasticand terse:Une surtoutde cesaquarellesm'a eblouiparson caracteremagique.Sur e bordd'une oged'unerichesse ourde et princiere, 'Imperatrice pparaitdans une attitudetranquille treposee;'Empereur e penche egerement ommepourmieuxvoirle theatre; u-dessous,deuxcent-gardes, ebout,dans une immobilitemilitaire tpresquehieratique,ecoiventurleur brillant uniforme es eclaboussuresde la rampe.Derriere a bande de feu, dansl'atmospheredeale de la scene, les comedienschantent,declament,gesticulentharmo-nieusement;e 'autrec6tes'etendun abimede lumiere ague,unespace irculaire ncombredefigureshumaines tous esetages: 'est e lustreet lepublic.(p.706)The reader/spectator can readily appreciatein Baudelaire'scommentaryon thesetwo works an interpretationwhich is succinct, faithful, and enlightening. But thosefamilarwith his other works will again have no difficultyin recognizinga recurringtheme and obsession of his poetry.One would only have to thinkof, forexample, 'lesvastes portiques' of'La Vie anterieure',or the way in which in 'Le Balcon' or 'LaChevelure' the intimate space of the alcove is none the less infusedwith a powerfulsense of depth. Similarly,under the influence of'les paradis artificiels'or in certainalmost supernatural states of mind, space is transformed and 'la profondeurde lavie'9 appears to be magnified beyond our normal perception. The scene in thecathedralinAthens is notjust some strangeexoticevent in a farcountry,but findsitsplace within the already existing structure of Baudelaire's imaginary universe,where it encounters a whole series of thematic analogues. Likewise, the Emperor'sloge denotes notjust a fashionable moment when the imperialfamily has graced apublic event; much more than that, it is part of a continuing obsession with spatialdepth and in particularwith the way in which theatre lighting can change life intodream, and the real into the ideal. No doubt it is their posture and magnificentuniforms which transform the guards into hieratic figures,but one can see also thatthe role of the light from the stage is notjust to add sparklebut to endow them withdepth,just as in 'L'Invitation au voyage' the 'meubles luisants IPolisparles ans' arevalued not merely for their shiny surface but for the depth of time, memory, andemotion that their sheen connotes. The function of the gleaming furniturein thisexotic paradise is in no sense decorative or practical;it is the externalcounterpartofa poetic reverie, the physical analogue of the spiritual qualities of the loved one towhom the poem is addressed. Similarly, the function of the military figures in theGuys drawing goes far beyond that of guarding the Emperor; through the magic ofthe light from the stage, theirphysical presencehas become an invitation to reverieon pomp and ceremony,on militaryand imperialsplendour, on the transfigurationof the banal world of everyday perceptions, and the evocation of the prestige andpermanence of a higher, essential, reality. The criterion that Baudelaire applied tothe works of the great painters ('il m'arrivera souvent d'apprecier un tableauuniquement par la somme d'idees ou de reveries qu'il apporteradans mon esprit'(p. 579)) can thus be applied also to Guys's less exalted art, and if one needed any

8 Mus6e du Louvre: reproducedin the catalogue of the Baudelaire exhibition, Petit Palais, 1968-69,p. 129.9 'Dans certain tats de l'ame presque surnaturels,la profondeurde la vie se revele tout entiere dans lespectacle, si ordinairequ'il soit, qu'on a sous les yeux. II en devient le symbole' (OC,i, 659).


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J. A. HIDDLESTON 6I3excuse for drawing, as I have done, the Burial Ground tScutari r DivineService eforeBalaclavanto Baudelaire'sown poetic universe, such a procedurefindsjustificationin the critical practice of the poet himself.These drawingsaretypicalofGuys's production,and the technique is more or lessthe same as in his urban scenes and 'etudes de mceurs'. When one has taken intoaccount the broader 'canvas', the largertopographicalfeaturesand the landscape ofa vast theatre of war, it is clear that they have the same qualities of drama,perspective, bizarreness, exaggeration, explosion, but with this difference:in theCrimea Guys is a war correspondent,a reporter,intent on conveying to his Londonreaders the truth about the war and giving as broad a view of it as possible: thebattlefields of Balaclava and Inkerman, the harsh conditions, the dead andwounded, the officers and generals, the regiments of the diverse nations, thedisciplinary beatings and so on. By a host of rapid fragments and throw-awayobservations, often with his comments and explanations intruding well into thespace of the drawing, he seems to be bent on creatinga narrative,and on reachingapanoramic, overallview of the war. It is for that reason that Baudelaire writes of thewar drawings as of a 'poeme fait de mille croquis, si vaste et si complique' (p. 702),and can confidently assert that 'nuljournal, nul recitecrit, nul livre, n'exprimeaussibien, dans tous ses details douloureux et dans sa sinistre ampleur, cette grandeepopee de la guerre de Crimee' (p. 701). It is clear that for Baudelaire theexpressions 'poem' and 'epic' contain a strongelement of totality and synthesis.But in Paris Guys is no longer a war correspondent;he is 'l'homme des foules'.Like the poet of LeSpleendeParis,he has espoused the crowd, 'accrochant sa penseerapsodique a chaque accident de sa flanerie' (Corr.,II, 583), and by 'rapsodic'Baudelaire means 'un train de pensees suggereet commande par le monde exterieuret le hasard des circonstances' (see OC,I, 428). The creation of the drawings of thecapital is of necessity haphazard, the continuing production of a frantic energy,vitality, and creativityalways at the call of outside stimuli, the creationof a 'moi' sojoyously and extraordinarily active, so 'vaporized',10so 'insatiable du non-moi'(p. 692), that it loses itself in the diverse objects of its observation. This is nonarcissistic self, engrossed in the contemplation of its own feelings, thoughts, anddestiny. Far from living like the dandy before a mirror, the 'artiste-flaneur' is aprince who has made the world his domain, who rejoicesin passing incognito, andwho himself becomes the mirror or kaleidoscope, reflectingand rearrangingwhat isgoing on around him. He has none of the blase cynicism of the dandy, engrossed inhis own person. His openness of spirit, akin to what Gide was later to call'disponibilite', makes him infinitely receptive, and at the same time transparentlyselfless and entire in his love of all that is visible and tangible in the outside world. Inorder to attain such an 'objectivity',he must possess the elusive art of being 'sinceresans ridicule'p. 69I). He must also have the heightened sensitivity of the convales-cent and more especially the child's ability to see the world 'en nouveaute'nd to be'toujours ivre'.In 'Moesta et errabunda'Baudelairehad celebrated 'le vert paradisdes amours enfantines' with nostalgia and longing, but here in LePeintre e gives anoriginal turn to the Romantic myth of the child, spelling out forthe first time the linkbetween artistic vision and that of the child, and stating his conviction that

10 OC, i, 676: 'De la vaporisation et de la centralisationdu Moi. Tout est 1a'.


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614 Baudelaire ndConstantin uysinspiration and genius are nothing more than childhood rediscoveredby an act ofwill, whereby the artist is endowed with a childlike wonder before the world,togetherwith the solid nerves and powerfulmental constitutionof the adult.The emphasis in LePeintredela viemodernes notjust on the childlike receptivityand intoxication of the artist but on the fecundity of the creative act and theproliferationof the stimuli. It has often been remarkedthat Baudelaire'svocabularyof the crowd is distinctly erotic, as is indicated by the use of the words 'epouser'and'jouissance', and by the way the artist is referred to as the 'amoureux de la vieuniverselle'and is comparedto the lover of the gentle sex (p. 692). In the prose poem'Les Foules' what men call love is thought to be vastly inferiorcompared to thatineffableorgy, 'cette sainte prostitutionde l'ame qui se donne tout entiere,poesie etcharite, a l'imprevu qui se montre, a l'inconnu qui passe' (OC, I, 29I), and the'ribote de vitalite' of the same poem finds a parallel in Le Peintre n the chaotic'pele-mele' in the movement in the streets,which in turnis echoed in a 'tantot.. tan-tot' sentence structure,and in forexample the nominal constructionof the followingpassage: 'Un regiment passe, qui va peut-etre au bout du monde, jetant dans l'airdes boulevards ses fanfares entrainantes et legeres comme l'esperance [...].Harnachements, scintillements, musique, regards decides, moustaches lourdes etserieuses, tout cela entre pele-mele en lui' (p. 693). The dominant faculty of thiscosmopolitan 'artiste-flaneur' is his curiosity: 'Ainsi il va, il court, il cherche'(p. 694), as if engaged in a desperateambition to observe and recordeverything, tocapture, exhaust, and subjugate the inexhaustible. As for Poe's Auguste Bedloe,who takes his daily dose of opium before his morning walk, the merest object orperception, the trembling of a leaf or the humming of a bee, is endowed with anexaggeratedinterest, and he experiences'toutun monde d'inspirations, une proces-sion magnifique et bigarreede pensees desordonnees et rhapsodiques' (OC,I, 428).This intoxicating and hallucinated state, in which the onrush of thought becomes'infinimentplusccelereet plus rhapsodique',an be so intense that reason is enslaved, amere '6pavea la merci de tous les courants'.Similarly,forthe 'flaneur' mmersed inthe crowd and impelled constantly towards the future and the new, the orderingpower of reason seems to have little or no part. There is no question of imposingcoherence on these random perceptions, no question above all of acceding to asynthetic view, and indeed Guys seems very farfromseeking it. Curiously, this rolehas been passed from the artist to the critic, who thus becomes once again involvedin a creative act, and it is Baudelairethe essayistwho, in the various chapterson thedandy, the soldier, woman, and carriages, scarcely mentioning any specific draw-ing, gives a synthetic portrait of each type. An excellent example would be thesplendid lines on 'l'amour interlope' in 'Les Femmes et les filles', or on the variouskinds of soldier which Baudelaire identifies after some introductorymoral reflec-tions of a generalkindconcerningtheir 'insouciancemartiale' and theirsimplicityofmind and behaviour:Aucuntypemilitairen'ymanque,et tous sontsaisisavec uneespecedejoieenthousiaste:evieil officierd'infanterie,6rieux t triste,affligeantonchevalde sonob6site;ejoli officierd'etat-major, incedanssa taille,sedandinant es6paules, e penchant anstimidit6 ur lefauteuildes dames,et qui, vu de dos, fait penseraux insectes es plus sveltes et les plus6elgants;e zouaveet le tirailleur, uiportentdans eurallureuncaracterexcessifd'audaceet d'independance,t commeun sentimentplusvif de responsabilite ersonnelle;a d6sin-voltureagile et gaie de la cavalerie egere;la physionomievaguementprofessorale tacademiquedes corps speciaux,comme l'artillerie t le genie, souventconfirmeepar


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J. A. HIDDLESTONl'appareilpeu guerrierdes lunettes:aucunde ces modeles,aucunede ces nuancesne sontnegliges,et toussontresumes,definisavec ememeamour t lememeesprit p.708).Baudelaire is no mere 'flaneur'ofGuys's works,contentjust to pickout those whichstrike him most forcibly. What he has done here is twofold. First, from all thehaphazard and disparate individual studies, he has transformedhis 'volupte enconnaissance' (p. 786)11by defining each one of the various typesof soldier. Second,he has given a panoramic overview or synthetic portraitof the essence 'soldier' in away that is not dissimilar to the 'poem'which is made of the totalityof the sketchesofthe Crimean War. To the joy of immersing oneself in the endlessly proliferatingobservations of the crowd and of fixing them on paper has been added theintellectualjoy of imposing order and permanenceon the random and the evanes-cent. The essayist, who had identified himselfwith the artistand espoused his pointof view, has doubled as philosopher and brought the anarchy of experience underthe disciplining structures of the intellect. As Baudelaire himselfelegantly states atthe end of'Le Poeme du Hachisch', 'Conclure, c'est fermer un cercle (OC, I, 440). Inthe case ofLe Peintre e aviemodernee has encompassed thedarting 'lignesbrisees'ofGuys's workwithin the synthesizing circle of his own thought.As with Delacroix and the other artists Baudelairefavours,memoryis an essentialfactorin Guys's art. Although inevitably the Crimeandrawings, and probablymostof the pomps and ceremonies, were done on the spot in front of the scene depicted,and though theoreticallyat least they do not conform to that fundamental aestheticrequirement of being produced from memory which Baudelaire reiterates anddevelops in the immediately preceding chapter, they do not appear to be anydifferent in technique from his other drawings of modern life. Like Boudin'ssketches,with time of day, weather, and wind conditions added in pencil, theyoftenhave written into the space of the drawing explanations and instructions to theengravers. They emit as a consequence a powerful sense of improvisation and ofimmediacy; like the other works of Guys they have about them something whichBaudelaire says is both ingenuous and 'barbare',and which proves Guys's attach-ment to the authenticity of the original impression. But Baudelaire extends themeaning of'barbarie' beyond this kind of fidelity, to a vision which is synthetic andabbreviative, one which like Corot's seizes immediately and from the outset thestructure, the physiognomy, and the principal characteristicsof a scene or of anobject, sometimes with an exaggeration which serves the human imagination:'[...] et l'imagination du spectateur, subissant a son tour cette mnemonique sidespotique, voit avec nettete l'impression produite par les choses sur l'esprit deM.G. Le spectateur est ici le traducteur d'une traduction toujours claire et eniv-rante'(p. 698). Because of this powerful structure, the Crimean drawings possessfrom the outset one of the essential qualities necessary for an appeal to thespectator'smemory. Furthermore,since Guys has avoided the kind ofphotographicrealism which delights in the depiction of the myriad trivia of circumstantial andminor detail, it is as if he had in fact executed the drawings from memory,universalizing and in a sense idealizing the scenes and once again making themavailable to the memoryof the spectator.Thanks to his abbreviatedvision, togetherwith the rapidity of the drawing, it is as if Guys had memorized the scenes as he11To transformone's initial, sensual responseto a work of art into a rationalawareness of its means is forBaudelaireone of the main functions of criticism.

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BaudelairendConstantin uysperceived them, as if perception, memory, and execution were not discrete andsuccessive stages but immediate and inseparable elements of the creation of thework.Although then they arequite different n subject-matter romhis urbanworks,and although they were drawn 'on the spot', the techniques and above all the effecton the spectatorare virtuallyidentical.Memoryis then, as in Delacroix, the springboardofsuggestiveness.Furthermore,Guys's method of drawing is not dissimilar to that of Delacroix, but taken to anextreme of'denuement':M.G. commence parde legeresindications au crayon,qui ne marquent guereque la place queles objets doivent tenir dans l'espace. Les plans principaux sont indiques ensuite par desteintesaulavis,des massesvaguement, egerementolor6es 'abord,maisreprises lustardetchargeesuccessivemente couleurs lus ntenses. p. 699)With a typicallyarrestingoxymoron, Baudelaire claims that what is thus createdis akind of 'ebauche, si vous voulez, mais ebauche parfaite' (p. 700). Here again, wemight think ofBoudin's pastels, or Corot's landscapes, orgoing furtherback remindourselves that Delacroix himself was, of course, praised or blamed, depending onwhether the critic was a partisan of the 'coloristes' or of the 'dessinateurs', forproducing, and intending to do so, mere 'ebauches' instead of perfectly finishedworks. What Guys has done is to push this unfinished quality to an extreme. Hisindeed is a 'minimalist' art,with figuresleft incomplete,horses whose legs are not allthere, faces almost totally deprivedof features or expression, and a wilfulblurringofthe background. What we have in most of his drawings is an art of gesture, soimportant in Baudelaire's art criticism that he draws attention to it repeatedly inDelacroix12 and in the caricaturists, or even in his appreciation of actors such asPhilibertRouviere, or FredericLamaitre,whose 'sculptural' acting is mentioned in'L'Artmnemonique' (p. 699). The drawingsportrayoftenlittle more than a posture,an attitude of the arm, leg, or head, which may be suggestive of great depths ofexperience and feeling, or may on the contraryreveal nothing but shallowness andinsensitivity, as in the passage from La Bruyerequoted in 'Les Femmes et les filles':'II y a dans quelques femmes une grandeur artificielleattachee au mouvement desyeux, a un air de tete, aux faoons de marcher, et qui ne va pas plus loin' (p. 720).Whatever its suggestive magic, it is a fleeting moment caught like an 'instantane',where it is left to the spectator to complete the shape or gesture which has beenbarely outlined or suggested. Such an art producesin the spectatorthe shock of thebizarre or the charm of the new, together with a sense of the rightness and theappropriateness of the shapes, outlines, and gestures,which are then equated to anexperience of'deja vu'. By what is only the semblance of a paradox, this art of theinstant is not limited to the one dimension of time, but like all great art, isinseparable from the workingsof memoryand recognition.It is at this point perhaps that we can begin to see more clearly how to apply toGuys's works Baudelaire's theoryof modernity,and especiallyof the transitoryandthe eternal, which he sets out in the opening chapters of the essay. Anyoneacquainted with the Salonde1846will find himself on familiarground, and indeedBaudelaire himself admits at one point that he has several times explained thesethings (p. 686). Beauty, he asserts, is always and inevitablyof a double composition,12 Compare a passage in L'(Euvre t la vied'Eugene elacroix:Ce merite tresparticulieret tout nouveau deM. Delacroix,qui lui a permis d'exprimer, simplementavec le contour,le geste de l'homme si violent qu'ilsoit, et avec la couleur ce qu'on pourraitappeler l'atmospheredu drame humain' (OC,II, 745).

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J. A. HIDDLESTONthe necessary consequence of the duality of fallen mankind: 'Le beau est fait d'unelement eternel, invariable, dont la quantiteest excessivementdifficile a determiner,et d'un element relatif, circonstantiel, qui sera, si l'on veut, tour a tour ou toutensemble, l'epoque, la mode, la morale, la passion' (p. 685). One can see imme-diately and without difficultyhow Delacroix's art conforms to this definition, sincein Ovide hez esScythes,orexample, or even LesFemmes'Alger,t combinesa modernRomantic sensibility with an impatient and tormentedspirituality,with an 'aspira-tion vers l'infini' (p. 42I). But how exactly does it apply to Guys, who is 'tyrannisepar la circonstance' (p. 697), whose modernityresidesin his fidelityto 'le transitoire,le fugitif, le contingent' (p. 695), and whose representationsof the present,like thoseofother 'peintresde mceurs',give pleasurepreciselybecauseofits 'qualiteessentiellede present' (p. 684)? It is easy to see what in Guys correspondsto the transitory,butwhat is eternal in this essentially fleeting and evanescent art is more difficult todefine. Baudelaire himselfgoes only some way towardshelping the readerout of hisdilemma, and even then one senses a certainslippage in the terms and a blurringofthe issue. Forexample, he talks of the artist as 'lepeintrede la circonstance et de toutce qu'elle suggered'eternel' (p. 687), whose task it is (and the twophrases seem to bein apposition) to 'degager de la mode ce qu'elle peut contenir de poetique dansl'historique, de tirer l'eternel du transitoire' (p. 694). On the next page he declaresthat if the modern is to be made worthyof takingits place as 'antiquity', 'il faut quela beaute mysterieuseque la vie humaine y met involontairementen ait ete extraite'.It would appear, then, that the eternal element is linked not just to the idea ofrecognition but also to the eminently Baudelairean notions of suggestion, poetry,and mystery. In its depiction of space, LaLogede 'Empereur,s I described,found ananalogue in Baudelaire's own mental universe,but at the end of his commentarythepoet-critic sums up his reaction by defining the picture as 'le lustre et le public',reaching beyond what was evanescent and transitory in it to the permanent andunchanging essence of'le lustre'. The contingent and circumstantial give onto theeternal and absolute, endowing this fleetingart of Guys with depth and reverie. Theuse of the substantives 'le lustre' and 'le public' finds an illuminating parallel in themagnificentpassage in 'Le Poeme du hachisch', where, having evoked the transfor-mation of colour, time and space in certain intoxicatedstates, Baudelairegoes on todescribe how our arid grammaritself becomes poetic, 'quelque chose comme unesorcellerieevocatoire;les mots ressuscitentrevetus de chair et d'os, lesubstantif, anssamajestesubstantielle'OC,I,43I; my italics). Adopting Baudelaire'sidiom, we couldsay that the 'magie suggestive' and the 'sorcellerie evocatoire' of Guys's drawingsresidein a kind of'substantialization' of the fleetingand the transitory,whetherit beof scenes, as with La Loge,or of individual figureswhose particularityof posture orgesture points at the same time to the eternal type to which they belong. Dubray issurely right to see in Guys a 'portraitiste de types',13all of whose drawings areendowed with a sense of the eternal, since they suggest a transformation of thenormal experience of time. Here an unexpected but richly suggestive parallel with'La Chevelure' may be drawn, for in that great lyricaloutburst, correspondinglikeDelacroix's paintings to one of those 'beauxjours de l'esprit' (p. 596), the voyage ofdiscovery of the past is projected into the future, which sheds its inevitableaccompaniment of anguish and is endowed with a reassuring certainty while still13Jean-Paul Debray, Constantin uys Paris:Rieder, I930), p. 28.

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BaudelairendConstantin uyskeeping its summons to adventure and novelty, just as 'l'azur du ciel immense etrond' keeps its sense of immensity, freedom, and openness, while losing the fearfulingredient of vertigo which a Pascalian imagination can find in infinite space. In away that is somewhat similar, the fleeting 'instantanes' of Guys appear to bringabout an analogous transformationof time, as the mind of the spectatoris at one andthe same time affectedby a sense of'deja vu' and by a creativeopening of the presenttowards the future and the unknown.

Here, of course, the parallelwith Delacroix's great paintingsmust be abandoned,for the cultural dimension is absent from thesedrawingsofmodern urbanlife,whichin comparison appear limited to the instant. So much of Delacroix, with its heroicand noble subject-matter, takes us into the depths of our literary, historical, andcultural past (Dante and Virgil, Ovid, Sardanapalus, Tasso, Rebecca, Romeo andJuliet), and it is for the spectator to re-create that past within himself by an act ofidentification with the mystery and drama of the scene. But with Guys things arevery different. There is no sense of a source, of historical depth, or of intertextualresonance, whether in the positive manner of Delacroix or the negative and ironicmanner of Manet. In addition, what is conveyed is almost nothing at all. Nonarrative element is made explicit. The figures stand before our gaze,,anonymousand in a context where very little appears to be happening. If there is a caption (inthe majorityof cases supplied by museum cataloguers), it is usually a tautology,nota means of entry into the work. Contrast LaBarque eDante,Ovide hez esScythes, aMortdeSardanapale,r even the Consecrationfa BurialGroundtScutariwith what wemost often find: Mounted oldiers, amilyoutWalking,ThreeWomenna Bar, CarriagentheBois de Boulogne.Such drawings are no doubt an invitation to memory andrecognition, but preciselybecause of their minimalism they requireof the spectatoran increased creative and imaginative response. Before Guys's drawings, moreclearly than before the works of any other artist,we can understand why it was thatfor Baudelaire memory and imagination were so indivisibly linked: 'La veritablememoire, consideree sous un point de vue philosophique, ne consiste,je pense, quedans une imagination tres vive, facile a emouvoir' (p. 470). These drawings invitethe spectatorto fill in the gaps, to create a storyor narrative,possibly a moral lesson,a personality, a legend, rom a gesture, attitude, bearing, or movement, which isprecisely why Baudelaire defines the art of this painter of modern life as 'cettetraductionlegendairee la vie exterieure'(p. 698; Baudelaire'sitalics).If there is a parallelwith Baudelaire'spoetryhere, it is not as much with the greatpoems of'Les Tableaux parisiens'such as 'LeCygne', 'LeJeu', 'Danse macabre',or'Crepusculedu matin', as somecritics have claimed,14as with thekindof descriptivevignette to be found in some of the prose poems: the 'beau monsieurgante, verni,cruellement cravate et emprisonne dans des habits tout neufs' of'Un plaisant'; 'lesyeux des pauvres' agog before the brightlights and the vulgar decor of the sparklingnew cafe where historyand mythology have been 'mises au service de la goinfrerie';the sudden explosive appearance of Mademoiselle Bistouri, 'une grande fille,robuste, aux yeux tres ouverts, legerementfardee, les cheveux flottant au vent avecles brides de son bonnet'; above all, the old woman of'Les Fenetres', 'muire,rideedeja, pauvre, toujourspenchee sur quelque chose, et qui ne sortjamais. Avec son14 See Gustave Geoffrey, Constantin uys, 'historienu secondEmpire Paris:Cres, 1920), p. 88, and FelixLeakey, Baudelaire:Collected ssays,1953-88 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. o6.

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J. A. HIDDLESTON 619visage, avec son vetement, avec son geste, avec presque rien,j'ai refait l'histoiredecette femme, ou plutot sa legende, t quelquefois je me la raconte a moi-meme enpleurant' (my italics).15What Guys invites the spectatorto exploit is not so much the 'reality'ofhis figuresas their legendary quality: in a word, their virtuality. They are merely the point ofdepartureof a creativeprocess, the burdenofwhich has been transferredaway fromthe artist. Here it is truer than perhapswith any other artist ofBaudelaire's time that'la poesie d'un tableau doit etre faite par le spectateur' (p. 9). Many of his drawingsconcern the elegant ephemera of fashionable life, such as a family out walking orladies and gentlemen in carriages or on horseback, and the spectator is invited tointerpreta gestureor posture,and to create from them a storyor a life. It is a stirringparadox that this essentially fleeting and evanescent art should be the one whichmakes the most urgent and compelling appeal to memoryand to the projectiveandcreative powers of the imagination.As a result, it would be very difficultindeed to definewith any degreeof accuracythe mental universe of Guys, what Proust would have called 'le monde de la penseede Guys',16preciselybecause it lacksprecisionand coherence. Of course,his themesand obsessions areplain to see, and Baudelairehas no difficultyin identifying themin the various chapterson woman, dandies, carriages,and so on, so that at firstsightat least a 'thematique'ofGuys's world should not appearto elude the critic. But theproblem is that the drawings, presenting as they do merely a starting-pointfor theimagination, appear initially as empty spaces, and insubstantial. In a much moredramatic and radical way than with other great figuressuch as Baudelairehimself,Balzac, or Delacroix, they break loose from their creator to become integrated intothe world of the spectator who, like the poet-critic himself, has to flesh out apersonality, create a past and a destiny, and subject the random and the prolifera-ting to the discipline and categories of the mind. The famous poem 'Les Phares', aterm which Baudelaire takes from Gustave Planche,17is not just a fine piece oflyricism;it also exemplifiesa critical methodwherebyRubens, Leonardo,Watteau,Goya, and Delacroix are all summed up and defined, each one in a single quatrain,containing a 'thematique' in miniature. Baudelaire succeeds notjust because of hisprodigious intellectual power but because each of these painters, even the infinitelytenuous Watteau, is the creator of a world which is both well defined and endowedwith presence. Precisely because his works are so malleable, such a study of Guys,whose point of departureis almost nothing at all, would involve not so much whatGeorges Poulet called an act of identification of critic with artist18as an appropri-ation of the artistby the spectator-critic and the imposition of a replacementmentaluniverse. To make the point more forcibly, one might contrast the malleability ofGuys's works with the strong sense of definition and resistance of caricature,for nomatter how active the spectator's participationin the scene or person portrayed,hisinterpretationand response are more restrictedand directedby the message which

15 OC,I, 279;318; 353;339.16Marcel Proust, Contre ainte-BeuveParis:Gallimard, 1971), p. 255.17G. Planche, Etudes ur l'cole franfaise,2 vols (Paris: Michel Levy, i855), I, 65: 'Gros, Gericault etDelacroix, voila les trois grands noms que notre siecle va donnera l'histoirede la peinture Voila ce quel'ecume de toutes les reputations qui bouillonnent autour de nous laissera surnager;voila les pharesimposants qui servironta rallier nos souvenirs,et dont la lumiereeclatante se reflechirasur d'autres nomspour les sauver du naufrage.'18In La Conscienceritique Paris: Corti, I97 ).


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Baudelairend Constantin uysthe caricaturist wishes to convey. If the spectator were free to make his owninterpretation,the caricaturist would clearlyhave failed in what he set out to do, andhis enterprise would be pointless. If the spectator were to see the person or thingcaricaturedas noble and praiseworthy,thejoke would then fall on the caricaturist,in much the same way as it fallson the ironistwho has the misfortuneto be believed.For all that, what Baudelaire presents in Le Peintre e a viemodernes, for the mostpart, a confident and even affirmative art, an art which in addition has a moraldimension to it, whetherit is showing the realitiesand sufferingof theCrimeanWar,or whether it leads to a speculation on the life of the various social types it outlines.Its suggestiveness and the reveriesit engenders in no way precludeit frombeing anart which evinces a strong sense of the real and of contemporarysociety. Even thedrawingsof fashionare far frombeing purelydecorativepiecesof art for its own sake,for they too point to a human destiny behind the elegant frivolities of attire andadornment. In this sense they are most unlike Manet's works of the same period,being devoid of that irony and self-referentialitywhich are the essential ingredientsof what might be called Manet's aesthetic agnosticism.19What makes Baudelaire'saccount of Guys's drawings such a fulfillingand joyful experience is, then, that itreflectsthe quasi-sexual vitality of the artist, the confidence of a critical mind whichachieves stability and synthesis amid proliferation,and that it makes an appeal tothe creative imagination of the reader to provide the story or legend of the figuresdepicted.But there are other drawings of bars, whorehouses, and street scenes which havenothing joyous about them and which are more deeply disturbing and baleful thananything else Guys produced in his long career. His later years in particular arealmost exclusively given to such images, as to a sickobsession. Gone are the radiantwatercoloursof his earlierwork, replacedby sombregrey washes in which spectralfigures play out the sordid rituals of 'l'amour interlope'. Clearly, Baudelaire hadseen some of Guys's earlier treatments of such themes, for he mentions in 'LesFemmes et les filles' the atmosphere in which 'l'alcool et le tabac ont mele leursvapeurs, la maigreur enflammee de la phtisie ou les rondeursde l'adiposite, cettehideuse sante de la faineantise', the grotesque and satanic 'Madame', and thesmoke-filledchaos in which 's'agitentet se convulsent des nymphes macabreset despoupees vivantes dont l'oeilenfantin laisse echapperune clarte sinistre' (p. 721). Insuch places, one finds 'rien que le vice inevitable, c'est-a-dire le regarddu demonembusque dans les tenebres [... ] la beaute particuliere du mal, le beau dansl'horrible' (p. 722). He insists on the moral fecundity of these images and on thesuggestions they engender: 'Elles sont grosses de suggestions, mais de suggestionscruelles, apres, que ma plume, bien qu'accoutumee a lutter contre les representa-tions plastiques, n'a peut-etre traduites qu'insuffisamment.' As before the enor-mous, hyperbolic, and convulsive laughter of Pierrot in the English pantomimedescribed in De l'essencedu rire,20as before the 'monstres hideux' of 'Les SeptVieillards', the poet, 'Blesseparle mystereet par l'absurdite'(OC,I,88), seemshereto sense a threat to reason and language, which appear to abdicate, inadequate totheir task. And these figures are all the more bizarre, astonishing, unreal, and19For a fuller treatment of this question, see my article, 'Baudelaire, Manet and Modernity', MLR, 87(I992), 567-75.20 'Avec une plume tout cela est pile et glac6. Comment la plume pourrait-elle rivaliser avec lapantomime?' (p. 540).

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J. A. HIDDLESTON'shocking' (Guys's aesthetic, like Baudelaire's, is indeed an 'esthetique du choc'),since, unlike those of the Crimean War, where the alienation is in a sense relativestemming from their involvement in the extreme situation of war in a distant land,theiralienation within the false securityof an allegedly familiarurban environmentcan by comparisonbe said to be total, absolute.Such drawings represent only a small part of Guys's production at that time,which no doubt explains why Baudelaire is careful not to exaggerate their impor-tance in relationto his other works. In any case we arestilldealing with the relatively'optimistic' Baudelaire of 1859, since the essay was written in November of thatyear, though not published until 1863. By emphasizing anddevelopingthe structureof the firstedition, the 86I edition of LesFleursduMal can be said to make an act offaith in the poet's ability to dominateand synthesizeexperience.Butwith LeSpleendeParis, things become very different. We know that at a certain moment, in i86Iprecisely, he had thought of the title La Lueur t lafumee,Poeme[singular], enprose(Corr. I, 197). The title is, however, inappropriate,because 'Poeme' implies epic,implies synthesis, as when he had talked of Guys's 'grande epopee de la guerredeCrime'e as 'ce poeme fait de mille croquis, si vaste et si complique' (pp. 701, 702). LeSpleendeParis,which Baudelaireperhaps once thought might form a 'Poeme', fallshopelessly into a world ofendless proliferationand repetitionof which the poet hadhad some premonition in 'Les Tableaux parisiens'.Anothertitle, which he had alsocontemplated, would have served him better, Les66 (the number of the beast in theApocalypse) or Les 666 orLes6666,for in LeSpleendeParisthe One has 'chute', likeGod in theJournauxntimesOC,I,365,688), intonumber, into an imperfectionwhichcan only repeat itself endlessly to infinity, the negative counterpartof the absolute.In spite of its shiftingironies, 'LesFoules', firstpublished in 86I, had celebrated theexuberant and selfless espousal of the other, only to degenerate two years later in'Les Fenetres', with the poet's self-mocking protest, 'Qu'importe ce que peut-etrelarealiteplacee hors de moi, si elle m'a aide avivre,a sentirqueje suis et ce queje suis?'(OC, I, 339), into the derisoryspectacle of the 'flaneur' turned Narcissus. Heaven/hell, God/Satan, Ideal/Spleen, 'extase de la vie/horreur de la vie', so manycollapsing and telescoping opposites, to which can be added 'flaneur'/Narcissus,each condemned finally to a time made of the endless repetition of the same. Toconclude, it would appear that Guys's evolution (and the drawings of his last yearssupport this view) follows a similar curve to Baudelaire's, and that after thejoyousimmersion in metamorphosis and number came the obsession with an eternity ofdamnation, as if each one of these proliferating mages representeda horrificvision,a negative 'ecstasis' before the endlessly repeated spectacle of'l'immortel peche'.

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EXETER COLLEGE, OXFORD J. A. HIDDLESTON

Baudelaire and Constantin Guys

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