Charles BAUDELAIRE. Lot n° 10

Salon de 1846. Paris, Michel Lévy frères, 1846. In-12 of XI and 132 pp.: paperback, pink printed and ornamented covers. First edition, much sought after. Second book published by Charles Baudelaire, still under the name of Baudelaire Dufaÿs. The publisher is already the young Michel Lévy who, after the death of the poet, will publish his Oeuvres complètes. "A book of high aesthetics" (Charles Asselineau). From now on, Baudelaire will find the style of the critical notes that will establish his reputation at the age of twenty-five. He laid down the principles of a personal aesthetic in relation to the plastic arts and literature, as he would practice it in Les Fleurs du mal. "The Salon of 1846 is even more daring; it is a collection of reflections on painting, sculpture, and criticism: there are famous pages on poncification, chic, colour, and the beauty of modern life, and a study on Ingres and Delacroix" (Bibliothèque nationale, Charles Baudelaire, 1957, p. 23). The main thrust of the book is the definition of Romanticism by modernity, the nature of which, according to him, is: "intimacy, spirituality, color, aspiration toward the Infinite." Horace Vernet, a member of the Institute and director of the School of Rome, is his bête noire: "I hate this art improvised with a drum roll, these canvases smeared at a gallop, this painting made with a pistol, just as I hate the army, armed force, and anything that drags noisy weapons into a peaceful place." Rare copy preserved in paperback. The second cover announces "Les Lesbiennes, poésies par Baudelaire Dufaÿs" and the Catechism of the Beloved Woman. Spine slightly oiled; scattered spotting, a few browned quires. Small but not serious paper cuts in the white margin at the head of eleven leaves when the book was clumsily cut by its first reader (pages 3, 9, 11, 27, 37, 63, 69, 81, 93, 97, 121). (Pichois, Dictionnaire Baudelaire, p. 428.- Clouzot, p. 43: "Rare and much sought after.")