The Flaneur (13/10/2020)

 Flaneur is the act of strolling, its a French term used by French poet Charles Baudelaire. It was a way of identifying and observing modern urban life and can be a featured person in a lot of impressionists paintings.

"The Flaneur has become an important figure for scholars, artists and writers and was taken up in the twentieth century by the Situationists"

It was also rare for a women to be a Flaneur as a women 'strolling' through the streets alone was an unusual sight, especially in the twentieth century. They would have been accused of being a prostitute, especially if it was at night. So for that reason whenever you would see a Flaneur in a painting it would usually be a man. However their were many women who challenged this and reclaimed their position in the urban world. This includes artists like Mary Stevenson Cassatt, Eva Gonzales, Lilla Cabot Perry etc.

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