Baudelaire: The Connection Between Toys And Children

The connection between artist and object starts out as a connection between child and toy. By understanding the connections children have with toys and how it breed the artistic minds of young artist, one can then go about maturing and becoming a mature well-rounded artist that composes work with substance and presence. Looking at Charles Baudelaire’s writing about toys and in turn Marit Grøtts analyst of Baudelaire, one can gain a greater understanding about why artist make and how they can apply their creative abilities.
A want to become and artist can start out in childhood. Imagination can stem from a lack of, be it money, loneliness, or simulation. A toy then is active in order to fill that lack of, or better called void. The child’s
In this passage Baudelaire says, “The toy is the child’s earliest imitation to art or rather for him it is the first concrete example of art…” this leads one to come to the understanding that, art for children can come in the form of a toy. This type of art, the art of a toy, is digestible for a child’s mind. He or she does not need to concern him or herself with the theory of why a ball is blue virus red. All the toy needs to be is a vessel for the child for creative thinking. Baudelaire then goes to say, “when mature age comes, the perfected examples will not give his mind the same feelings of warmth, nor the same enthusiasms, nor the same sense of conviction.” He says this because that a toy is only the beginning sage in learning about art. One must then expand ones thinking to then be satisfied. Further more, in reading Marit Grøtts book Baudelaire’s Media Aesthetics: The Gaze of the Flâneur and 19th-Century Media, chapter on toys, Grøtts analyzes Baudelaire’s writings of toy, and from the passage above, she states, “In this Manner, he connects the child’s fascination with toys with the development of an artistic sensibility implying that as the child grows up, he may transfer his aesthetic preferences to art.” Using Grøtts analysis of Baudelaire one can then see how toys can give birth to artists. By having a need a child creates toys, then in turn grows imagination, then transforms that
Art objects that instead of hiding behind a fancy exterior cover a work that reveals their selves. It opens its self up to be critiqued, to be ridiculed, and looked at. This honesty in what it is, and what it is not, can be a powerful tool for an artist. For example, the painting The Treachery of Images by René Magritte, shows a brown pipe and the text below it reads “Ceci n’est une pipe” or “ This is Not a Pipe”. This painting is so honest in what it is it is hard at first to not take it as some kind of joke. This painting is obviously a painting of a pipe, so why in the world does it say, “ This is not a pipe”? This work is confusing until one relies this is not a pipe this is a painting of a pipe. It is an illusion, a symbol to represent a real object. This painting is a great example of a work of art truthful. Instead of trying to fool the viewer in to an illusion, a young artist should use this to there advantage. the young artist should make the audience an active part of the art and not just try to trick them in to believing you. It is always better to have the viewer be in on the magic or idea so thy can believe to for themselves instead of relying on the artist to tell them what to see or do. The goal of a young artist should not be to fool the viewers but to make the viewers question