IN HIS 1863 ESSAY “The Painter of Modern Life,” Charles Baudelaire introduces his audience to Monsieur Constantin Guys, the “perfect stroller (flâneur).” This cosmopolitan gentleman is driven by curiosity, joy, and a desire for new experiences. A “passionate spectator,” he strolls about urban spaces, observing the crowd. Even though the flâneur is alone, he is at ease. His wandering gives him inspiration. He is “away from home” yet feels “everywhere at home.” He is at once an artist, a man of the world, and a “spiritual citizen of the universe.” Baudelaire’s perfect flâneur is gifted with the ability to both understand and penetrate the world: “Few men are gifted with the capacity of seeing; there are fewer still who possess the power of expression.” Not only does the flâneur capture our world, his art transforms it. “The external world is reborn upon his paper,” Baudelaire writes, “natural and more than natural, beautiful and more than beautiful, strange and endowed with an impulsive life like the soul of its creator.”

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