Retratos y autorretratos de Baudelaire:

un itinerario visual por sus ideas sobre arte

Abstract

Here we propose go over the representations and self-representations of Charles Baudelaire that were reflected in his self-portraits and in the portraits by contemporary artists. With these images as visual anchors —imitating Baudelairian's critical method— we go through the main aesthetic ideas developed in his art criticism, from the Salon of 1845 (the first work that he published) to Le Peintre de la vie moderne. Certain topics, like tension between romanticism and realism, the modern beauty, the ability of art to capture the fugitive, as well as the praise of "mnemonic art", emerge as concepts that, at the same time that our critic defined and examined them, they take a visual form in representations that have the person of Baudelaire as motive.