ABSTRACT
In 1847, Theophile Gautier wrote three versions of a piece of publicity for his own Salon de 1847, which had initially appeared between 30 March and 10 April 1847 as a series of eleven articles in the Parisian daily La Presse, of which he was the art and theatre critic. In the first Gautier is 'un de nos premiers critiques d'art', by the third he is the successor to Diderot; in the first, the book is assured the same success as the original articles, by the third, it is the exhibition's 'livre d'or'. In all three the emphasis is on Gautier's mastery of the art of painting with words. This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book presents examples of the ways in which he put his skills to use during the short-lived but pivotal era of the Second Republic.
