I wish I had some idea how I came to be looking up Charles Baudelaire on Wikipedia, but I consider it a lucky strike of free association: I had never seen a photograph of him before. This one got my attention.
It's credited to Étienne Carjat, c. 1863. I had some idea of what he looked like from paintings, but none of them have that mimetic jolt: you stare in at the subject, he stares out at you. It's weirdly modern, immediate. How often do you see photographs from the 1860's where the subjects have bruises under their eyes? He looks like an accountant who hasn't slept for a month. He's a Decadent poet's hangover. And somehow he looks respectable. Run-down, but not in the aesthetically dissipated way. (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
fleurdelis28 commented, "I'm not sure I'd ever expected to see a photograph of a person who looked like a cross between Remus Lupin and Calvin Coolidge, but if I had I would not have expected that person to be Baudelaire.") Given, of course, that he was Baudelaire, I bet it annoyed the fuck out of him.
It's credited to Étienne Carjat, c. 1863. I had some idea of what he looked like from paintings, but none of them have that mimetic jolt: you stare in at the subject, he stares out at you. It's weirdly modern, immediate. How often do you see photographs from the 1860's where the subjects have bruises under their eyes? He looks like an accountant who hasn't slept for a month. He's a Decadent poet's hangover. And somehow he looks respectable. Run-down, but not in the aesthetically dissipated way. (
fleurdelis28 commented, "I'm not sure I'd ever expected to see a photograph of a person who looked like a cross between Remus Lupin and Calvin Coolidge, but if I had I would not have expected that person to be Baudelaire.") Given, of course, that he was Baudelaire, I bet it annoyed the fuck out of him.
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