Réflexions sur l’étude de la critique d’art, à propos d’un livre récent.

The recently published book by Wolfgang Drost on the subject of the art criticism of five major writers (.Dichten), Diderot, Stendhal, Heine, Gautier and Baudelaire, takes up all of the many works that he devoted to them during his long career, but poses several problems. The term Dichter (as opposed to the simple expression man of letters) is not self-evident. The category thus defined is of no interest to art historians. It is understandable that historians of literature are tied to the writings about art of famous authors. However, either these writings are considered as mere documentary sources, allowing greater understanding of their literary works strict sensu, or else they are recognized for their own literary value, if only for the importance of the descriptions, as in the poetry and novels of the period. Nevertheless, it is rare to find studies devoted to this literary aspect that Wolfgang Drost also neglects. Ordinarily the question raised is to know whether or not this Dichter was a good critic. The criteria being tire conformity of the judgment of the artists with the views held today, considered correct, taking into account the distance in time. Wolfgang Drost rightly contests the validity of this anachronism that does not take into account the variations in taste, but his position remains ambiguous, if only because he establishes a radical opposition between the spontaneous subjectivity of the critic and a supposed objectivity of the history of ait held to be scientific