Chapter 14 Paris Romanticism AD 1848

I have traveled through many stations before, and mentioned some names, some famous, some not so famous.At many stations there are only one or two names familiar to modern people, such as Shakespeare, such as Cervantes.Over the centuries there have been sporadic figures of excellence, and only once every few centuries is one sufficiently talented to illuminate history.But at this stop, we can see more famous people than the previous ones combined. When we talk about classical art today, writers can think of Hugo, Dickens, Tolstoy, painters can think of Monet and Van Gogh, and musicians can think of Wagner and Chopin.For us, they are all classical, they did not work in the same way as they do today, they lived in a classical world separated by two world wars.We go to art galleries to admire their paintings, and to concert halls to appreciate their music.We collectively refer to them as classical art, and hang them high in the classical palace.

However, as far as real history is concerned, they are by no means classical.They are all modern artists after the Great Revolution, and they are anti-classical and innovative when they appear on the stage.They are participants in various modern revolutions, far more radical than our mediocrity.They live in all sorts of circumstances, not all of them in high halls, in fact, most of them don't live in high halls.The reason why we regard them as the spokesmen of classics today is largely because they belong to the generation when art exploded. The artistic explosion of the 19th century shone so brightly that it overshadowed the 20 centuries that preceded it.When we look back, we only see this light, not what is behind it.So the innovators become the benchmarks, and the anti-classics become the spokespersons of the classics.

The epicenter of the 19th century storm was Paris.Paris is a screen of history. The importance of the 19th century to human history is that it was a true turning point between the modern and the ancient. "Modern" as a specific term refers to the 19th century.It was the century of a real turning point in people's daily lives.The great voyages began in the 15th century, the money economy flourished in the 16th century, the colonies flourished in the 17th century, and democratic politics came to the fore in the 18th century, but people’s lives did not enter the modern world composed of work and shopping.Only when the Industrial Revolution brought together these previous changes in the 19th century did the world change radically.

Merchandise and the Metropolis complete this last step. Merchandise, oh, the assortment of merchandise! The 19th century was the century when people began to depend on each other. No one could live alone. People could not survive without shopping. Food and clothing were no longer dependent on themselves, and the streets became the cradle of exploration.Shops began to fill the streets and alleys, and the cities built glass arcades, which were filled with shoppers, who traded the coins they got from a day's repetitive work for clothes and bread.People began to live on the road, and there were cafes, bars, dance halls and theaters on the road. After working, people did not sit around the fire, but began to go to the street to have fun in the cafe.Everything has a price, whose clothes are beautiful no longer depends on the mother, and the person who has a check in his hand is treated by everyone.Ships are puffing and puffing in the port, and ferries are full of cargo.People go to the company to find jobs and forge parts that they will never use for strangers thousands of miles away.

All these are things that did not exist in antiquity, they belong and belong only to the Metropolis. The 19th century saw the birth of the metropolis, people entered the world of industry, no more generations, no more tribute, people paid for all services with money.Employers and employees count clearly, and strangers pass each other at the corner of the mall.This is where all kinds of people hang out.The Stock Exchange was full of respectable gentlemen in top hats who bet on horses, talked about politics, speculated in bonds, swayed business, and thought that anyone without a job was an idler.Factory bosses stamped their feet on the roaring workshop and yelled to speed up.Brokers began to appear, and they turned their eyes to attract opportunities, like looking for customers for winking beauties.Wandering artists began to walk on the streets, believing that they were the masters of the times, the new nobility, the spiritual nobility.Children work for coins.Women began to walk out of the boudoir, show off their gorgeous clothes, spend a lot of money on the Champs Elysees, and walk as a model under the shade of trees.

All these are silhouettes of Paris.Paris is the quintessential metropolis, the center of commercial culture.It was not the first place to be industrialized, but it was the place where modern business flourished the most. Paris in the 19th century was the focus of world commodity convergence.Paris has hosted six World Expos. In 1855, the majestic Crystal Palace was built for the World Expo. It claims to be able to accommodate products from all countries; it likes modern aesthetics. The Eiffel Tower was completed in 1889. It enjoys the pleasures of the metropolis, under the arcades made of glass, people's eyes are overwhelmed, full of eager comments and comparisons; in the banquet hall of private houses after nightfall, publishers, reporters, steel Factory owners, law students, noble and not noble women held all-night parties, laughing and flirting.Nowhere is it easier than in Paris to see the interlacing of eras, the coexistence of ancient beliefs and modern pleasures, the confrontation of steel glass and megalithic fortresses, the confrontation of towering iron towers and deep churches, each proud, each retaining a piece of world, in the same city , each reaching the ultimate beauty.

The world of big industry has finally arrived.People become the pets of machines.People are uprooted from the land, floating in the city world, like a feather fluctuating with the wind, stained with dust and then falling into the deep valley. This is the century of the frivolous.The frivolous roam the city, delighted in the sights.Baudelaire was the greatest poet in Paris.He was acutely aware of these urban flanders: a new and curious urban class.He also found the poor, the marginalized people who were squeezed out by the city.He wrote poems and biographies for these people, and wrote down the voice of the turning point of the times. "With chin in hand, from my garret, I look upon the workshops of singing and chattering; the chimneys and belfries, the masts of these cities, and the sky that makes one dream of eternity."In such observations he sees its splendor: "The tower of Babel with its arcades of stairway, becomes an endless palace, pools of still pools rushing down, discs of gold, rough or polished." He also sees The ruins of it, "Yeah, these people are fed up with the troubles of life, crushed by toil, disturbed by age, hunched and exhausted by the scum of the huge Paris spit." He never glorifies anything People, those poor and disabled people have their own ugly faces, and the prosperous scenery is just a dream.He stood on the sidelines, wrote with a rhythmic blade, and carved treacherous emotions on the paper. Paris gained an eternal face in the knife marks.

"Citizens as private citizens have stepped onto the stage of history." Benjamin, a philosopher of the 20th century, described Baudelaire's Paris, "In Baudelaire's works, Paris became the subject of lyric poetry for the first time. A hymn to homeland, when the fabler's gaze falls upon the city, it is the gaze of an alienated one." People in this age entrust themselves to money.This habit is so powerful that it has passed down to us beyond time.Without the fanaticism of medieval beliefs, and without the simple loyalty of knights, people began to calculate rationally and believed that this was the truth. Artists in the 19th century were invariably aware of this historical change.Balzac wrote about Meymot exchanging souls with the devil, about the old man Grandet staring at gold when he was dying, and Flaubert about bond brokers defrauding Madame Bovary of all her money.This is the artist's response to the times.When an era comes, artists have the ability to sneer at its prosperity, tear off its vanity, and write about its pretense and stupidity, luxury and ruin.

Paris is a city full of temptations.When Polish political commentator Frankowski described Paris, he believed that Paris is a city that develops with extraordinary creative functions: "Paris is running, Paris is surging, Paris is boiling." In a boiling city, unique scenery is an artist.A restless soul is full of desire to express.Poetry, novels, paintings, music, the city is full of wandering artists, and every wanderer dreams of expressing himself to the world.They are shouting, piercing history with their shouts.If the 18th century belonged to revolution and the 20th century to war, then the 19th century belonged to art. The 19th century had both revolution and war, but neither revolution nor war dominated. Nineteenth-century battles were partial and detailed, nineteenth-century art is grand and panoramic.In this century, art transcends war.

Paris in the 19th century was a center for artists.It has one unique thing that has changed art history as well as politics, and that is the Salon.The salon is a special product developed in this era. It originated from the banquet hall of the court nobles. In this century, it has evolved into a gathering of ordinary artists.In the salon, scholars of philosophy, literature, music, and fine arts gather together, share similar temperaments, and sparks collide.Private salons belonged to circles and confidants, often in the homes of wealthy and hospitable hosts, accompanied by banquets, debates, and readings.The Academy Salon is in the art museum, releasing new works of artists and inviting critics to visit. This is the only way for newcomers to stand out.The salon is the place where the work is born.In the salon, there are rigidity, prejudice, and power struggle, as well as originality, thinking, and insight.More competition than rigidity, collisions burst into fireworks.

Baudelaire once described Delacroix's Salon, when the poet was still young and the great painter was already famous all over the world.The poet is a new guest in the painter's studio.He admired Delacroix, loved his style and his colours.Baudelaire noted with emotion what happened in the Salon: "'We' does not mean only the humble author who wrote these lines, but also several others, young and old, journalists, poets, musicians At home, he can relax freely and casually beside them." Delacroix is ​​an alternative to 19th-century French painting, and Baudelaire is an alternative to 19th-century French poetry. The salon allows such different artists to combine in one Together, gain vitality.From the colors of Delacroix, Baudelaire realized the richness and depth of passion.His poetry also has a similar richness and depth. Delacroix is ​​the hero of French painting and the most outstanding pioneer.He walked into the salon with an anti-academic attitude and was finally recognized by the academy. In the 19th century, France experienced a golden age of fine arts. From David to Gero, from Ingres to Courbet, from Jericho to Delacroix, a series of names run through classicism, realism and romanticism , pushing each to a peak, French art has never been as prosperous as the 19th century in any century. From the French Modern Pavilion in the Louvre, you can see the changes in the 19th century.David's "The Coronation of Napoleon" and "The Oath of the Horatii" were born in the turbulent years after the Great Revolution. They are representatives of neoclassicism, with quiet and orderly composition, muscular lines and human elegance, full of Greek beauty. .Jericho's "The Raft of the Medusa" is a shocking and dynamic work. It depicts a famous shipwreck at that time. Fighting in a frenzied death.The ship that had been broken into pieces was upturned at one end, and the other end was submerged by the waves. The pale corpses of the dead were intertwined with the surviving fighting spirit of the living, and the sea water seemed to break through the huge picture.Delacroix's "Liberty Leading the People" is even more famous all over the world. It portrays the scene of revolution in a gloomy, chaotic, but exciting way.The woman's breasts are exposed in the wind, more flesh and blood than the Statue of Liberty. The revolutionary as the protagonist is a poor child with a crooked hat, and the sweep of the revolution is vividly displayed in the cry. "Dante's Boat" takes place when Dante and Virgil are crossing the Styx, the dark and ominous sky, the dead people under their feet, the tension in the picture makes people enter the world of exploration.In addition, there are Ingres' soft academicism and Courbet's sharp realism.Perhaps these paintings are not the greatest works in the history of art, but they are definitely representative of the most moving works.Delacroix is ​​a model of French Romanticism, and the difference between him and Ingres became an important step in the evolution of French art. The best description of the life of salons and artists in the 19th century is Flaubert's novel "Education of the Sentiments".Flaubert created a new fashion for fiction writing.He abandoned the tradition of the previous writers talking with eloquence and constant discussion, and wrote the plot with objective details.He wrote about all kinds of people drifting in Paris, aimless college students, writers with ethereal fantasies, conservative wives of middle-class booksellers, happy mistresses of frivolous rich people.He brings the turbulent situation of the revolutionary era, the style of Paris, the unsettled state of the whole society, and the vigorous and restless soul into the book, and expresses it vividly.All sorts of people roam the streets of Paris, bohemian artists are poor and happy, the newly rich are ambitious in the government. This is writing that restores revolution without glorifying its chaos or its passion. Paris in the 19th century was undergoing such a baptism.Flirty, yet exciting.People are uncertain about the future, they are eager to try, and their hearts are active and restless.Everyone is eager for change, and the street is the stage.Newism is debated in the salon, the social atmosphere is swaying in pleasure, and the people drifting in the city are in turmoil.Everyone wants to be equal and to get ahead.Some people speculate, some people are down and out.The situation abroad was changing beyond Paris' control. The result of this state of affairs was a cumulative outburst of unfocused passion into a melee revolution—the Revolution of 1848. The Revolution of 1848 was an important and unique revolution.It is important because its flame has been burning all over Europe, spreading from France to Germany, Austria, and Bohemia.It is unique because this revolution may be the most difficult to distinguish between the enemy and the revolution. Almost everyone participated in it. In France, almost everyone was dissatisfied with the "July Dynasty", but the middle class and liberals , workers and socialists, Napoleonists and nationalists each have their own pursuits, it can be said that they are completely different from each other.In this chaotic process, there are no definite opponents and no definite allies. I am afraid that the only certainty is an emotion, an excited emotion that hopes for the reconstruction of the world. France experienced ups and downs throughout the 19th century.Unlike Britain's steadfast constitutional monarchy and colonial imperialism, France hadn't found a political way to settle itself for a century.Napoleon dominated Europe in 1810, overthrew all the important old royal families, married the daughter of the Habsburg family, and established his dual status among the people and the nobility.But the peak didn't last.With the failure of attacking Russia, Napoleon's career also came to a turning point. The Battle of Waterloo in 1815 ended Napoleon's hegemony, leaving a blank France, which was returned to the king after the double downfall of the Great Revolution and the Empire.King Louis XVIII restored the Bourbon dynasty, restored the sovereign status of the king, made parliament an advisory body, and made the constitution a gift from the king to his subjects.His successor, Charles X, was more conservative, with many policies trying to return to the state before the Great Revolution. In 1830, when the publishing control and the decision to dissolve the parliament completely aroused dissatisfaction, the July Revolution broke out and the Bourbon dynasty was overthrown. Louis Philippe came to power and started the July Dynasty, a relatively liberal constitutional monarchy. "Liberty Leading the People" depicts the scene during the July Revolution of 1830. The temporary stability was broken again in 1848.Although Louis-Philippe's civilian king's leadership line is relatively mild compared with the previous dynasty, it is neither courageous nor free enough in the eyes of many people. 1848 was a clash of multiple grievances.Prime Minister Guizo supported capitalists and government investment, borrowed too much, and corruption scandals continued.Guizot and Louis-Philippe let this go, much to the displeasure of the bourgeoisie and the liberals.At the same time, new factories and assembly lines created a large number of poor workers, but did not provide adequate security, allowing the rise of socialists, dissatisfied with the government.The Catholic Church was dissatisfied with the king's appeasement of capitalists, and the Napoleonists were dissatisfied with the king's foreign policy of bowing to others.With poverty at home and weakness abroad, no government can satisfy anyone at this point. On February 22, 1848, workers and students took to the streets and the revolution broke out. This revolution is a revolution of multiple dogfights. "Sentimental Education" clearly describes the passions and unclear purposes of people at the time.The team assembled, but easily changed directions as they marched.The revolution went surprisingly smoothly, forcing the government out of office in 3 days, but failed to find a suitable alternative form of government for a whole year.The Second Republic was established, but the competition among various forces was deadlocked, and a leader could not be elected for a long time.In the process, liberals, royalists, radicals and communists fought for each other.Marx spent the most important time in Paris during this period. The Communist Manifesto was published in London and Paris in 1848, changing the world ever since.Eventually, Napoleon's nephew, the conservative Louis Bonaparte, was elected president in December and proclaimed emperor four years later, revolution once again returning to the empire. The flames of the Revolution of 1848 spread eastward, causing change throughout Central Europe. The age of turmoil is the age of the artist. In the 1840s, political genius was scarce, but artistic genius was surprisingly concentrated.Geniuses gathered together by coincidence, surpassing the sum of the years before and after.Their brilliance not only did not cover each other, but illuminated each other, forming a dazzling light. In these 10 years, Hugo came into people's field of vision.He published the Romantic Manifesto of Cromwell in 1827, and published it in 1831. In 1841, he was elected to the French Academy, and at the same time gradually stepped into the revolutionary wave; In the last 10 years, he wrote the most classic chapters in "Human Comedy": , "The Peasant" and .Dumas was loved by all, in 1844-1845 he wrote the legendary and "Count of Monte Cristo", while his son, the young Dumas wrote in 1848, a story so beautiful that later Many tears were shed. In 1842, Stendhal passed away, leaving behind the outstanding "Pama Abbey".His realism was left to his friend Mérimé, who wrote it, and later Bizet wrote operas based on it. The two Frenchmen made the passionate Spanish girl famous in history.The female writer George Sand also presented her masterpieces "Consuelo" and "The Swamp" at this time. George Sand, the most famous salon hostess in history, entertained almost all the well-known artists at the time at her home. She was famous for her personality, she smoked, wore men's clothes, and had romantic stories with Musset and Chopin.Chopin's motherland is Poland, but the most important creative time in his life belongs to Paris, where he lived for 17 years until his death in 1849.He lived with George Sand for more than ten years, and had close contacts with Liszt, Delacroix, Balzac and Heine.In the last 10 years of his life, he wrote a large number of piano pieces, concertos and famous polonaises, engraving his love and homesickness into melancholy melodies.Liszt was Chopin's introducer. He went to Paris earlier than Chopin, became friends with Berlioz, and was famous for his gorgeous skills.Berlioz is the pride of French music. His dramatic style and fantasy power created the sky of French romantic music.Romanticism was the theme of the era.Madame Stahl was the one who introduced the romantic spirit of Germany to France.Heine's "Romantics" wrote a plain voice.He said that classical art only represented finite things, while Romantic art used metaphors to imply infinite things.This purest German poet lived in Paris for 18 years. His romantic and free spirit and his discovery of German medieval poetry all brought important inspiration to Paris and later German spirit.Heine met Marx in Paris. Marx arrived in Paris in 1943, began to study political economy, and became a communist. It was in any case a miracle that all these people were in Paris at the same time.Although they scattered, exiled, died or emigrated after the Revolution of 1848, in the short 20 years before that, they created everything in this small city that would be proud of a thousand years. The Paris of the 19th century was the Paris of Romanticism.The ideal of classicism became too static and conservative.The Age of Reason was elegant and serene. As the Enlightenment spread across Europe, everything could find rational order and universal laws. However, the Age of Enlightenment passed away. From the end of the 18th century, people began to be swept by a powerful and wild enthusiasm. Enthusiasm started from Germany and gradually spread to the whole of Europe.It celebrates desperate sacrifice, tragedy, and even destructive passion.It doesn't care about the law, but about the emotion breaking free from the shackles.It is parallel to the revolution, but it is detached from the gains and losses of the revolution, becoming a detached imagination in pursuit of the mysterious universe.On the one hand, it is innocent and sweet, but on the other hand, it is immersed in chaos and cruelty. It accepts everything except the order of obedience.This universal spirit began with the poems of the Schlegel brothers, Goethe and Schiller, was carried forward by Beethoven, and finally blossomed in Paris with the two revolutions of July and February. Everything that Romanticism emphasizes: personal personality, inner world, stormy passion, and dedication to faith, has achieved a Paris with great personality.Paris loves Romanticism, and it accommodates so much Romantic art.Therefore, it has become the center of the world, not because of wealth, not because of military exploits, but only because of unique art.It is the artist who makes Paris.They have witnessed the frenzy and turmoil of the times. They come from the revolution, but they are far beyond the revolution. The revolution left few fruits.Only the monument in the center of the Place de la Bastille is dedicated to the revolutionary years.The revolution razed the Tuileries Palace outside the Louvre to the ground, leaving only an empty garden - the Tuileries Garden.The revolution turned Paris into an arena for street fighting.The now quiet and refined side streets, lined with high-end shops, were the site of barricades during the Revolution.Beneath carved marble walls, seething crowds hurl themselves at each other.In Hugo's description of the street fighting during the Revolution of 1830 can be read, very different from the Parisian sophistication we are familiar with today.Revolutions often destroy more than they create.But the spirit of art saves this destructive force and rises from the barren soil. The political status of Paris has risen and fallen, but the emphasis on literature and art has remained to this day.The revolution did not leave political power, but eternal poetry and art.Today, we can still pay homage to the tombs of Hugo, Balzac and Alexandre Dumas in the Pantheon, which is the pride of Paris: a country’s mausoleum is not given to emperors, but to writers, which is unique in the world.The Pantheon is one of the most beautiful buildings in Paris. It is a neoclassical style building after the revolution. Author of The Little Prince - the most romantic aviator in the world. Paris has preserved the former residences of many celebrities.Delacroix's former residence is in the corner of a small alley in the Latin Quarter, where many precious works of the painter are displayed. The pictures are full, full of exotic styles and wild swaying postures.The former residence of Impressionist master Monet is like a garden in an impressionist painting.Hugo's former residence is in the corner of the Place des Vosges. It is well preserved and retains the elegant interior style of the 18th century. There are statues and manuscripts of Hugo on display for visitors to revive with respect. The result of the revolution is ultimately not political stability, but cultural legacy.France has experienced the Second Republic, the Second Empire and the Third Republic after the Paris Commune. After two wars, France has become the Fifth Republic today.All regime changes have become temporary, only cultural traditions have become permanent.The café became the birthplace of French intellectuals, from the time of Voltaire to the present day.Later Tolstoy, Hemingway and other writers were inspired in Paris.To some extent, the 1848 era has continued. The Impressionism of Degas and Monet at the end of the 19th century, the left bank and existentialism of Camus and Sartre at the beginning of the 20th century, and the vigorous Rose Revolution in 1968 are all reflections of the 1848 era. A distant tribute to a splendid and unparalleled artistic era. 1.Pantheon: A pure and solemn neoclassical building, formerly known as St. Genevieve Church.The original meaning of the name is "Pantheon", and many famous people such as Voltaire, Rousseau, Hugo, Zola, Berlioz, Curies and other celebrities are placed underground.The hall has dome murals by Gero, group portraits of revolutionaries and monumental sculptures of St. Dexupéry. 2.The Louvre: Undoubtedly the most classic museum in the world.The largest scale, collecting all kinds of classic paintings.It is free on Friday nights and the first Sunday of each month and is worth visiting multiple times.With classical and Renaissance paintings as the mainstay, the French pavilion in the 19th century is unique.Musée d'Orsay: It is the largest Impressionist and postmodern art museum in the world, focusing on the masterpieces of modern art starting from Impressionism. 3.Hugo's former residence: No. 6, Place des Vosges, Paris, a spacious apartment, displaying Hugo's manuscripts.Delacroix's former residence: In the alley near the Saint-Germain-des-Prés Church, precious paintings are collected. 4.The Bastille: The storming of the Bastille, a symbol of the Revolution, is today a museum.It is dark and has a sense of history, and you can see the place where Louis XVI and Queen Mary were imprisoned.Reminiscent of Dickens. 5.Musée Canava: Museum of History in Paris, free to visit.The exhibition hall is very large and very distinctive. It not only exhibits utensils and photos like ordinary museums, but also shows real scenes, including ancient bridges and architectural decorations, fireplaces, room furniture, and a large number of excellent oil paintings of the 19th century. Fully recall the prosperity of the salon era. 6.Grand Palais and Petit Palais: built for the 1900 World Expo, with extremely beautiful glass and steel vaults and extremely beautiful 19th-century oil paintings. "Emotional Education" [Method] Flaubert (1821～1880) translated by Li Jianwu The French writers in the 19th century were happy. They could write about all the turmoil and all the blood and fire that belonged to their era.Our history always has to be reviewed and written in the next dynasty, so we always watch the fire from the other side and make guesses out of thin air. "Sentimental Education" is an excellent book, although it was unsuccessful when it was published, George Sand asserted that "it is a book as beautiful as it is good".After World War II, people gradually established its status. The excellence of "Emotional Education" lies in finding the most suitable and sharp entry, and successfully describing that period of history that is not easy to describe.Flaubert chose the hesitant and passive protagonist, the provincial student, adrift in Paris, apolitical, an innocuous minor player in the revolution.This is not his failure to create characters, but in that torrent of history, this is the typical human being: being pushed forward unconsciously.Flaubert is neither idealistic nor passionate, nor is he sneering at. He just uses precise details to expose the person himself to the air until it fades away. "They're usually merciless. People who haven't fought just want to make a confession. It's an influx of fear. Everyone's taking revenge at the same time on newspapers, clubs, gangs, doctrines, all the suffocating hatred for three months; Though victorious, equality emerges in victory, a kind of beastly equality, on the same level as bloody iniquity; for obsession with profit and passion for need, both are equal aristocratic licentiousness, a nightcap no more than a red hat Less ugliness. As if after a cataclysm of nature, the public's mind has been confused. Some men of intellect have been fooled by it all their lives." [Method] Hugo (1802～1885) translated by Li Dan and Fang Yu Hugo's stormy romanticism is at its fullest in .He once commented that Shakespeare's excellence lies in his ability to write great and real characters, which is the highest state of literature and art.Hugo himself is working in this direction and succeeds. Hugo has romantic and mixed feelings about the revolution.His brilliance lies in not only writing that revolution is a great cause, but also describing in the most poignant detail the scene of a jumping child being shot and fell down. "Everything lends to the tragic majesty of this supreme last moment: the myriad mystical explosions in the air, the sounds of processions moving in the invisible streets, the staccato gallop of cavalry, the blare of advancing artillery. The heavy vibrations, the salvos and cannons circled over the labyrinth of Paris, the golden clouds of war rose from the roofs, the terrible flames everywhere, the alarm bells of Saint-Merry were now whimpering, in this In mild seasons, the sun and clouds are dotted with brilliant blue skies, and in the splendid hours there are dreadful dead houses." "The Human Comedy" [France] Balzac (1799～1850) translated by Fu Lei The characteristic of Balzac is not satire. Although we often regard old man Goriot as a representative of satire, Balzac is not the kind of sardonic writer.He is characterized by a good-natured smile, a laughing exaggeration.The people he described are not abominable, but comical little people caught in the torrent of the times. "Human Comedy" is the style of the times.Women say I hope for love and wealth, men say I hope for honor and wealth, they think they are smart enough to make all kinds of plans, but they are not smart enough to see the final fate clearly.Therefore, disillusionment is always the theme, and the end of the rush is always nothing.Maybe this is comedy. "Danerville: 'I can't tell you what I have seen, because I have seen many evil things that cannot be ruled by law. In short, all the ugly stories that novelists think they have created out of thin air are really worse than the facts. It's too far away. You, you're going to learn these interesting things, and I'm going to live in the country with my wife, and Paris makes me sick.'" —— "Colonel Sharpay" The Art of Painting in the 19th Century [Love] George Moore (1852～1933) Translated by Sun Yixue In this book, George Moore started to write from Wheelers, wrote to Ingres, Delacroix, Chirico, Millet, Courbet, all the way to Impressionism.Discussions of art and organization, and the relationship of kingship, and patrons and merchants, are also written.With the eyes of outsiders, review the whole of French art in the 19th century.Sometimes, the eyes of outsiders can have more insight than those who are immersed in it. "The desire to be completely truthful and the desire to be more noticeable are inadvisable; striving for the most beautiful is the only creed of which we know so little today. "Since the subject has come to the fore in the art of France, England, and Germany, as much as the subject itself has been felt, art has thus declined. For the past 100 years, painters seem to live in libraries rather than Living in a studio... painters seem to neglect nothing but learning how to paint." "On Art and Artists" [France] Delacroix (1798～1863) translated by Hirano Delacroix is ​​an excellent art critic.His biography and comments on Michelangelo in this book are the most touching among many.He introduces important French painters and discusses realism and idealism.He is an artist who understands art, and he always pays attention to the human mind, spiritual power and art. Perhaps this is also the source of his art's power. "It's hard to imagine that most of them are ordinary people, and they hardly know themselves. They love art and have been engaged in art all their lives... Their nobility is only due to their own creations, unlike many nobles. All the same. The light of honor shone upon them too late, in order to lighten the pain of a life full of difficulties, and almost always saw the light only at the last step of the hard way. "Whoever has a soul can understand the soul of an artist well." "I See Delacroix" [Method] Baudelaire (1821～1867) Translated by Mao Yanyan and Xie Qiang Baudelaire's is a beautiful collection of poetry, one of the greatest, if not the greatest.Baudelaire's talent is a talent that cannot be found. Baudelaire adored Delacroix.He wrote critical biographies and defenses of Delacroix, and he took much inspiration from Delacroix's passions and colours.He sees Hugo as a skilled artist but a conformist worker, while Delacroix is ​​"occasionally clumsy but essentially a creator".Getting a confidant is perhaps the luckiest thing for an artist. "Whoever talks about romanticism is talking about modern art, that is, inner nature, spirituality, color and yearning for the infinite expressed in all the ways that art encompasses. "Is it any surprise that color plays such an important role in modern art? Romanticism is the son of the North, and the North is a home of colour. The South is gritty and practical, and the North is bitter and anxious." "Paris, Capital of the 19th Century" [Germany] Benjamin (1892～1940) translated by Liu Beicheng In fact, this is a collection of research articles on Baudelaire.本雅明作为20世纪最重要的思想家之一，正是从波德莱尔、拱廊街、现代和闲逛者开始了自己的哲学。在这篇叫做《波德莱尔笔下的巴黎》的文章中，他用看似闲散的笔调写了巴黎的种种，也写了那个时代最划一的心灵。 “时尚规定了商品拜物教所要求的膜拜仪式。时尚是与有机的生命相对立的。它让生命体屈从于无生命世界。面对生命，它捍卫尸体的权利。这种屈服于无生命世界的色诱的恋物癖是时尚的生命神经。商品崇拜调动起这种恋物癖。 “知识分子以闲逛者的身份走进市场，表面上是随便看看，其实是在寻找买主。在这个过渡阶段，知识分子依然有赞助人，但他们已经开始熟悉市场。”