Baudelaire’s 1863 essay, “The Painter of Modern Life,” is considered by scholars to be one of modernism’s foundational texts.
In his essay, Baudelaire praises fellow Parisian Constantin Guys for his illustrations and watercolors that capture the fleeting, ephemeral, and ever-changing aspects of modernity.
Guys was also one of the first visual journalists, sent by a London newspaper to cover the Crimean War—which I think makes him doubly modern.
Guy’s illustrations, some just hasty sketches done in the line of fire, were engraved and published only weeks after the events they depicted, a first for journalism.
To read more, click here….
La Loge de l’opéra (“A box at the opera”), Constantin Guys; wikiart.org
David Weintraub 