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From: Artforum International
Date: 20020401
Author:Higgs, Matthew

Writing in the first half of the nineteenth century, Honore de Balzac set out to distinguish the flaneur-artiste from his lowly, run-of-the-mill counterpart. For Balzac, the ordinary flaneur was little more than a pedestrian--a poseur at once dazzled, seduced, and confused by modern life. Only the sophisticated artist-flaneur, blessed, as Balzac determined, with superior insight, was able to truly experience the chaotic splendor of metropolitan hubris. Balzac's artist-flaneur--a dandyish, somewhat detached figure--would appear to have anticipated, by almost a hundred and fifty ...

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