The Arcades Project - Operi

Influence of the processes of technological reproduction on the realists' theory of
painting: "According to them, the position of the artist toward nature ought to be
completely impersonal-so much so that he should be capable of painting the
same picture ten tinles in succession, without hesitating and without having the
later copies differ in any way from those that came before;' Cisele Freund, La
Photographie en France au XIX' siecie (Paris, 1936), p. 106. [S5,5]
Careful attention should be given to the relation of Jugendstil to Symbolism,
which brings out its esoteric side. Therive writes, in his review of Edouard
Dujardin, Mallarme par un des siens (Paris, 1936) : "In an astute preface to a book
by Edouard Dujardin, Jean Casson explains that Ie symbolisme was a mystical,
magical enterprise, and that it posed the eternal problem ofjargon-'argot essen·
tialized, which signifies, on the part of the artistic caste, the will to absence and
escape; . . . What Symbolism liked best was the semiparodic play with dreams,
with ambiguous forms ; and this commentator goes so far as to say that the
melange of aestheticism and bad taste of the sort popularized by Le Chat Noir
(caJ' cone; for cafe concert; leg·o'·mutton sleeves; orchids; and hairstyles inspired
by wrought·iron designs) was a necessary and exquisite combination;' Andre
Therive, "Les Livres" (Le Temps,June 25, 1936). [S5a,1]
Demler labored four years on a portrait that hangs in the Louvre, and along the
way he did not scorn the use of a magnifying glass to obtain a reproduction
perfectly faithful to nature. This at a time when photography had already been
invented. So difficult is it for man to relinquish his place and allow the
apparatus to take over for him. (See Cisele Freund, La Photographie en Hance au
XIX' sieele [paris, 1936], p. 112.) [S5a,2]
In a prefiguration ofJugendstil, Baudelaire sketches "a room that is like a dream,
a truly spiritual room . . . . Every piece of furniture is of an elongated form,
languid and prostrate, and seems to be dreaming-endowed, one would say, with
a sonmambular existence, like minerals and plants." In this text, he conjures an
idol that might well call to mind tile "umlatural mothers" of Segantini or Ibsen's
Hedda Cabler: "the Idol . .. Yes, those are her eyes ... those subtle and terrible
eyes that I recognize by their dread mockery;' Charles Baudelaire, Ie Spleen de
Paris, ed. R. Simon (Paris) , p. 5 ("La Chambre double")." [S5a,31
In the book The Nightside of Paris, by Edmund B. d'Auvergne (London, n.d.,
circa 1910), there is a mention, on page 56, of the old Chat Noir cafe (Rue Victor­
Masse), where, over the door, there was an inscription that read: "Passerhy, he
modern! ' (In a letter from Wiesengrund.)-Rollinat at Le Chat Noir. [S5a,4]
'''What could be further from us than the amazing amhition of a Leonardo, who,
considering painting as a supreme end, a supreme display of knowledge, and
deciding that it called for omniscience, did not hesitate to embark on a universal
analysis whose depth and predsion leave us overwhelmed? The passage from the