José Pedro Pérez-Llorca
Conference 2026:
Antoine Compagnon

Baudelaire at the Louvre's Spanish Gallery

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Starting in 1838, the collection of Spanish paintings assembled by King Louis-Philippe was displayed in a special gallery at the Louvre Museum. The revolution of 1848 led to its dispersal. For ten years, the discovery of Velázquez, Zurbarán, Ribera, El Greco, and Goya had a considerable impact on visitors, art lovers, and artists alike. Spanish art became fashionable. Painters such as Delacroix and Courbet found in it the justification for their Romanticism and Realism, respectively. Less immediately, Manet saw in it the birth of modern painting. Certain art critics and poets, notably Gautier and Baudelaire, instantly grasped the significance of the discovery of the Spanish painters. I will focus on Baudelaire, whose poem “The Lighthouses” brings together Goya and Delacroix. This will allow for a back-and-forth between Paris and Madrid, between painting and poetry, as well as a reevaluation of the judgment of the poet of Les Fleurs du Mal regarding Manet: “You are but the first, in the decrepitude of your art.” Did Manet’s Spanish influence have anything to do with this? I extend this idea to Matisse, a follower of Baudelaire and Manet, whose trip to Spain in 1910 influenced his art for a long time”.

Antoine Compagnon