Charles Baudelaire was a French poet, essayist and art critic. Baudelaire's highly original style of prose-poetry influenced a whole generation of poets. He is credited by some with coining the term 'modernity' to designate the fleeting, ephemeral experience of life in an urban metropolis. He also identified the flaneur in his essay The Painter of Modern Life (1863). Selected quotes from his essay are provided below.
The Painter of Modern Life
"Sometimes he may be a poet; more often he comes close to the novelist or the moralist; he is the painter of the fleeting moment and of all that it suggests of the eternal."
" An Artist, Man of the World, Man of Crowds, and Child."
"By 'man of the world', I mean a man of the whole world, a man who understands the world and the mysterious and legitimate reasons behind all its customs..."
'...By 'artist', I mean a specialist, a man tied to his palette like a serf to the soil...He takes an interest in everything the world over, he wants to know, understand, assess everything that happens on the surface of our spheroid...curiosity may be considered the starting point of his genius."