ABSTRACT
Some have called Charles Baudelaire's aesthetic an "interarts theory"; which is to say that Baudelaire's aesthetic goes for any art. The nineteenth-century French poet Paul Verlaine said of Baudelaire that he was profoundly original and powerfully represented the modern times and modern art. This chapter describes seven criteria of the timeless element Baudelaire speaks of and by which one may say whether or not it is there. First is the critical acclaim of an artwork among art lovers. The second criterion is longevity. The third criterion is influence. A fourth criterion is a work's translatability, or transmittance or portability. Fifth criterion is an artwork's indomitability. Sixth criterion arises from Paul Valery: a work's productiveness. Seventh criterion is a work's memorability. In an artwork one discovers one's own longing—that one is a creature of longing, only that one had forgotten it in all the madness of the day, but one is restored to it as to the truth.
