Baudelaire and the Rival of Nature: the Conflict Between Art and Nature in French Landscape Painting

Abstract

The rise of landscape painting as a dominant genre in nineteenth century France was closely tied to the ongoing debate between Art and Nature. This conflict permeates the writings of poet and art critic Charles Baudelaire. While Baudelaire scholarship has maintained the idea of the poet as a strict anti-naturalist and proponent of the artificial, this paper offers a revision of Baudelaire's relation to nature through a close reading across his critical and poetic texts. The Paris Salon reviews of 1845, 1846 and 1859, as well as Baudelaire's Journaux Intimes , Paradis Artificiels and two poems that deal directly with the subject of landscape, are examined. The aim of this essay is to provoke new insights into the poet's complex attitudes toward nature and the art of landscape painting in France during the middle years of the nineteenth century.