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| Gustave Caillebotte, Le Pont de l'Europe |
When French poet Baudelaire conjured the perambulating philosopher known as the flaneur in his 1863 essay The Painter of Modern Life, he was merely being hypothetical. He said of this mythical wanderer:
The crowd is his element, as the air is that of birds and water of fishes. His passion and his profession are to become one flesh with the crowd. For the perfect flâneur, for the passionate spectator, it is an immense joy to set up house in the heart of the multitude, amid the ebb and flow of movement, in the midst of the fugitive and the infinite. To be away from home and yet to feel oneself everywhere at home; to see the world, to be at the centre of the world, and yet to remain hidden from the world—impartial natures which the tongue can but clumsily define. The spectator is a prince who everywhere rejoices in his incognito. The lover of life makes the whole world his family, just like the lover of the fair sex who builds up his family from all the beautiful women that he has ever found, or that are or are not—to be found; or the lover of pictures who lives in a magical society of dreams painted on canvas.
It was German philosopher Walter Benjamin who brought this idea of a strolling observer into academia. In his weighty work The Arcades Project, Benjamin wrote of the flaneur as a thinker, delving into the city like an urban Francisco de Orellana, noting its impact on their psyche, deconstructing the world around them. These metropolitan explorers were loafers who, through the simple act of wandering with no purpose, were acting against the industrial consumerism that became rampant in the 19th century (although it could be argued that many would use their observations to tailor their own wares to the crowd).
Consider today's crowded cityscapes. The narrow pavements hardly allow for gentle sauntering, unless you want to be pushed along by busy shoppers, and the sensory assault of lit windows, signs, pop music echoing from a clothes store - none of this is geared towards the art of the flaneur. Loitering is a punishable offense in the modern age - I've personally been moved along by police for the revolutionary act of sitting talking with friends after dark. The structure of our cities are bent towards consumerism rather than delicious thought (to paraphrase Keats), but in an age where we're bombarded with questionable news content, constant social media updates and devious politicians, we need to bring back the art of loafing around town. We need that time for introspection, to get our affairs in order and to mull over creative ideas. This is the antithesis to what the government and businesses want, therefore it's exactly what we should do. Use that time when we're supposed to be indulging in capitalism to wander, stroll and saunter - observing and drawing inspiration. Let's bring Baudelaire's myth back to our streets in an act of intellectual, quiet revolution.
Further reading:
In Praise of the Flaneur, The Paris Review
Eye-swiping London: Iain Sinclair, photography and the flaneur, The Literary London Journal
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