The Artist and Interpretations of Modernity:

Readings of Charles Baudelaire

Abstract

We propose a critical reading on modernity from Benjamin’s point of view, elucidating his choice by Charles Baudelaire as one of the artist’s voices of interpretations about this time, where artists poetically theorize about the object of art, its production conditions, its techniques and the search for the new in the midst of the unpredictability highlighted by modernity. We will discuss how Baudelaire relates themes such as the development of capitalism and the subalternization of people and the shattering of the modern world by the art route, from a melancholic consciousness that cruelly strips social relations, highlighting the tone of rationality brought by the authors and visions of the daily life marked by the contradiction of modern life faced in a melancholy way. We will therefore emphasize the importance of Baudelaire to inaugurate lyrical modernity critical of a lifestyle that separates people from each other, from the world, promoting fragmentation and dispersion as the first premises.