Charles-Pierre Baudelaire’s Salon de 1859 [The Salon of 1859] is one of his most important pieces of art criticism. During Baudelaire’s lifetime (1821-1867) the work appeared only in the form of a series of letters addressed to the director of the Revue française [The French Review], published in four instalments throughout June and July 1859, and consequently it was not widely read at the time. It would not be published again until 1868 in Curiosités esthétiques [Aesthetic Curiosities], the second volume of the posthumous edition of Baudelaire’s complete works. The Salon de 1859 is certainly one of the chief cornerstones of Baudelaire’s reputation as “the father of modern art criticism” (Mayne, “Editor’s Introduction”, in Baudelaire, The Mirror of Art, ix, xix). The Salon de 1859 – “ce traité de haute esthétique” [“this treatise of high...
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Citation: McKellar, Kenneth. "Salon de 1859". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 04 March 2016 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=11258, accessed 13 December 2025.]
