Studying

This tiny patch of Zurich Old Town is keeping secret in its protestant shadows the memory of innumerable thoughtful flâneries.

Tout l'univers visible n'est qu'un magasin d'images et de signes auxquels l'imagination donnera une place et une valeur relative; c'est une espèce de pâture que l'imagination doit digérer et transformer. Toutes les facultés de l'âme humaine doivent être subordonnées à l'imagination, qui les met en réquisition toutes à la fois. De même que bien connaître le dictionnaire n'implique pas nécessairement la connaissance de l'art de la composition, et que l'art de la composition lui-même n'implique pas l'imagination universelle, ainsi un bon peintre peut n'être pas un grand peintre. Mais un grand peintre est forcément un bon peintre, parce que l'imagination universelle renferme l'intelligence de tous les moyens et le désir de les acquérir.

Baudelaire, Salon de 1859

I remember having read this quote (and many others) a thousand times as I was studying Baudelaire's critical work at the university, till it became a mantra utterly impossible to decipher. It has been my Quest of the Graal. "Le peintre de la vie moderne" had become my own flesh and blood, and his eyes - mine. How can you possibly reflect on yourself ? The snake was biting its tail, and my system couldn't digest any further piece of secundary literature on the double nature of art, eternal and transitory. There have been many great Bierhalle conversations devoted to this theme, where everything got so clear at once. But night swallowed the clever phrases on the way back home and the page remained blank.

Then I met Mallarmé and felt instantly better. I still don't know why, probably just because time had passed. And it was not in Zurich.

Now I'm quite surprised to find a meaning in those lines. And happy not having to vivisect them for a living. They are just there to be enjoyed and recommended to friends.