From the book
Intimate Journals
Charles Baudelaire · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordArabesque here names drawing organized through patterned, elaborated line rather than a narrated incident.
- In Intimate JournalsFusées V and VI2 repeat the same subject while changing its predicate.
- In this editionThe 2026 translation retains ‘spiritualist’, explicitly explained in translator's note 7, rather than flattening it to ‘spiritual’.
- A place to readLe dessin arabesque est le plus spiritualiste des dessins.
Meaning
Arabesque here names drawing organized through patterned, elaborated line rather than a narrated incident. Baudelaire's two superlatives make the relation between visible form and spirit unusually sharp: the most spiritualist drawing can also be the most ideal. The terse notes do not identify a particular artwork or prescribe a complete decorative style.
‘Spiritualist’ is an opposition to the sufficiency of matter in this context, not evidence that the drawing communicates with spirits. Nor should ‘ideal’ be taken to mean merely attractive. Both claims ask what a line can do beyond copying the external appearance of an object.
Use in the book
Fusées V and VI2 repeat the same subject while changing its predicate. The first calls arabesque drawing spiritualist; the second calls it ideal. Repetition is evidence of an idea being tried in neighbouring formulations, rather than a reason to discard one as redundant. Because neither fragment supplies an argument, the reader must keep the claim compact while testing it against other entries.
Fusées XXII's ship supplies a related operation: real elements in motion generate imaginary curves and figures. These produce the idea of an immense, harmonious animal expressing human ambition. The connection is interpretive, not an explicit equation made by Baudelaire. It nevertheless helps show how visible lines might activate imagination without representing a pre-existing spiritual being.
Fusées XVIII contrasts German reverie expressed through line with English reverie expressed through perspective. The national generalization is undeveloped, but its formal distinction prevents a reduction of all imaginative drawing to one device. Fusées XX's instruction for raw colouring and deeply recut drawing is another compact practical note. Across these passages, line is not subordinate illustration; it can be the means by which reverie acquires an intelligible movement of its own.
Places to read
- Fusées VLe dessin arabesque est le plus spiritualiste des dessins. — The first superlative concerns drawing’s relation to spirit.
- Fusées VILe dessin arabesque est le plus idéal de tous. — A neighbouring reformulation changes spiritualist to ideal.
- Fusées XVIIIL’Allemagne exprime la rêverie par la ligne — Line is treated as a means of expressing reverie.
- Fusées XXIImouvement dans les lignes — The ship’s geometry becomes the source of a poetic idea.
Translation in this edition
The 2026 translation retains ‘spiritualist’, explicitly explained in translator's note 7, rather than flattening it to ‘spiritual’. ‘Drawing’ for dessin works both as activity and as formed design; ‘picture’ would encourage a more narrowly representational reading. The separate English superlatives preserve the two notebook trials. The phrase ‘drawing deeply recut’ in Fusées XX is similarly left material and practical rather than converted into a general compliment about strong composition.