Charles Baudelaire‘s approach to photography

This presentation is focused on the chapter from Charles Baudelaire‘s essay Salon 1859. In this chapter called The modern public and photography Baudelaire mentions his opinions on photography as a medium which became highly popular among wide society at the time. According to Baudelaire photography is very useful for development of science but it should not be considered as art because it is just an exact copy of reality which unlike work of fine art lacks soulfulness. But the accurate representation of reality is something which public now demands from good work of art – and this is what Baudelaire finds most declining and problematic. This presentation aims for presenting Baudelaire‘s opinions to photography and setting them into the context of discussion about the legitimacy of artistic photography.