The brush and the pen: When words make and break painters' careers

For words, in art, possess a strange power: they can bury a genius or raise them to the pantheon. They sculpt reputations like a sculptor’s chisel shapes clay—sometimes with delicacy, often with violence. But how can a simple text, published in an ephemeral newspaper, decide the fate of a work and its creator? What if the true history of painting lies not only on the canvases, but also between the lines of gazettes and reviews?

01The Academy and its guardians: when taste is decreed

Before criticism became a genre in its own right, the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture reigned supreme over taste. Founded in the seventeenth century, this institution was more than a school—it was an aesthetic tribunal where genres were ranked with the rigor of a military code. At the top of the pyramid stood history painting, noble and moral, with its ancient heroes and biblical scenes. At the bottom, still lifes and genre scenes were deemed minor, almost unworthy.

Take Jean Siméon Chardin. In the eighteenth century, this painter of the humble—half-empty glasses, gleaming fish, children playing cards—was initially ignored by the academicians. His canvases, too far removed from grand subjects, were relegated to secondary salons. Yet one man would change everything: Denis Diderot. In his Salons, published in the Correspondance littéraire, the philosopher described Chardin’s still lifes with such verve that the public began to see them differently. "One understands nothing of this magic," he wrote of The Ray, that skinned fish whose entrails seemed to pulse beneath the brush. Thanks to these words, Chardin became the painter of "mute things that speak," and his work entered the Louvre.

But beware: academic criticism was not always benevolent. In 1824, when Eugène Delacroix presented The Massacre at Chios, the Academy’s judges were outraged. Too much color, too much movement, too much passion. "This is painting done with a broom," wrote one critic. Delacroix, wounded, turned to writers for allies. Stendhal, Baudelaire, and later Théophile Gautier would defend his genius with such eloquence that history would ultimately prove them right. Yet how many artists, less fortunate, faded into obscurity because an academician had decreed their art "unworthy"?

02The critic, that flâneur armed with a pen

In the nineteenth century, art criticism became professionalized. Newspapers multiplied, and with them emerged a new figure: the critic-flâneur, that gallery stroller who wandered through exhibitions as one might meander through a garden. Among them, Charles Baudelaire embodied this stance with Parisian elegance. In The Salon of 1846, he did not merely judge the canvases—he examined them, caressed them with his gaze, extracted their soul as a physician might probe a body.

Take Woman with a Parrot by Courbet. To many, this canvas was just another erotic scene, a pretext for displaying a nude body. But Baudelaire saw something else: "This woman is not a courtesan; she is a goddess." In a few words, he transformed a realist painting into a modern allegory. And when he wrote of Delacroix, "There are people who can look at the sea all their lives without understanding Delacroix’s painting," he was not merely analyzing—he was creating a myth.

Yet criticism was not always so poetic. Some journalists, like Louis Leroy, wielded irony with devastating cruelty. In 1874, during the first Impressionist exhibition, he published an article in Le Charivari titled "The Exhibition of the Impressionists," mocking these painters who "believed they had invented light." The word "Impressionist" was hurled as an insult—yet it would become their banner. Criticism, even negative, could sometimes serve as a springboard.

03When words become weapons: the case of Manet

If any painter embodies the power of words over a career, it is Édouard Manet. In 1863, Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe caused a scandal. Not because of the woman’s nudity—after all, antique goddesses had populated the Salons for centuries—but because this nudity was contemporary. The woman who stared back at the viewer with such audacity was not a Venus; she was a Parisian. And that, the public could not abide.

Critics had a field day. "A naked woman among two clothed men is an incongruity," wrote one journalist. Another called it "dirty painting," as if Manet’s colors were stains of mud. Yet amid the chorus of mockery, one voice rose: that of Émile Zola. In L’Événement, he defended Manet with such fervor that the artist sent him a letter of thanks. "You are the first to understand me," he wrote.

Zola did not merely praise Manet—he made him a symbol. In The Masterpiece, a novel inspired by the painter’s life, he transformed his struggle into an allegory of modernity. Thanks to him, Manet was no longer just a controversial artist—he became the hero of a new aesthetic. And when, years later, the public finally embraced his canvases, it was not only because tastes had changed, but because Zola’s words had prepared the ground.

04The forgotten of history: when criticism buries talent

But what happens when criticism ignores an artist? Or worse, when it condemns them outright? The history of art is filled with unrecognized geniuses, talents smothered beneath the weight of prejudice.

Take Rosa Bonheur, that nineteenth-century animal painter who was nonetheless one of the most celebrated artists of her time. Her paintings of horses and oxen, rendered with almost photographic precision, were praised by critics—so long as she remained confined to her genre. But when she dared to paint more ambitious scenes, like The Horse Fair, some journalists cried scandal. "A woman should not paint such virile subjects," wrote one. Rosa Bonheur, who wore trousers and smoked cigars, mocked these critics. Yet after her death, her work faded into obscurity, a victim of an art history written by men for men.

Another example: Suzanne Valadon, the former acrobat turned model, then painter. Her female nudes, with their unsettling frankness, shocked critics. "Bodies of women painted by a woman—it’s indecent," one could read in the papers. Yet today, her canvases hang in the Centre Pompidou, and her son, Maurice Utrillo, is far better known than she is. Criticism has the power to erase a career as surely as it can build one.

05The revenge of the forgotten: when time rewrites history

Fortunately, history sometimes has a sense of justice. Some artists, despised in their lifetime, are eventually rehabilitated by later generations.

Take Georges Seurat. When he died in 1891 at just thirty-one, his pointillist canvases were still widely misunderstood. Critics spoke of "mechanical painting," of "cold mosaics." Yet a few decades later, the Surrealists saw him as a precursor. André Breton wrote, "Seurat liberated color from form." Today, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte is one of the most famous paintings in the world.

The same fate befell Vincent van Gogh. During his lifetime, he sold only one canvas, The Red Vineyard, for a paltry sum. Critics of the time called him a "madman," a "failed painter." Yet in 1901, a posthumous exhibition in Paris changed everything. The Fauves, then the Expressionists, saw him as a genius. Today, his Sunflowers are icons, and his letters to his brother Theo are sacred texts of modern art.

But beware: this rehabilitation is not automatic. How many artists, just as talented, still wait their turn in museum storerooms? Criticism, even retrospective, remains a game of power.

06The contemporary critic: between influence and suspicion

Today, art criticism has changed its face. Traditional newspapers have lost influence, replaced by blogs, social media, and influencers. Yet the power of words remains intact.

Take Banksy. This anonymous artist, who plays with the codes of the street and provocation, owes part of his fame to critics who have deciphered his work. When he painted Girl with Balloon in 2002, some saw only a simple romantic image. But more perceptive commentators understood it as a reflection on the fleeting nature of art and love. And when, in 2018, the canvas self-destructed after an auction, critics seized the event and turned it into a symbol. Banksy does not need to speak—the words of others make his success.

Yet this new criticism is also more volatile. On Instagram, a work can go viral in hours, propelled by hashtags and likes. But is this fame lasting? Or is it just a flash in the pan, like those artists who disappear as quickly as they appear?

07The artist and their double: when criticism becomes a work of art

Sometimes, the boundary between artist and critic blurs. Some painters become their own commentators, like Salvador Dalí, who wrote surrealist texts to explain his canvases. Others, like Marcel Duchamp, play with words to muddy the waters. When he exhibited a urinal titled Fountain in 1917, it was not just a provocation—it was a way to force the public to reflect on what art is. Critics, of course, seized the object and turned it into a symbol. But Duchamp merely smiled.

Closer to us, contemporary artist Ai Weiwei uses social media as an extension of his art. His posts, halfway between manifesto and performance, are commented on, analyzed, dissected. Criticism is no longer an external text—it is part of the work.

08The last word

So, who truly holds the power: the artist or the critic? The answer, as often, is more nuanced than it seems. Words can destroy, but they can also save. They can confine a work to a category or, conversely, give it wings.

One thing is certain: without critics, the history of art would be far more silent. They are the guardians of memory, the translators of emotions, the intermediaries between artist and public. And sometimes, when they are geniuses themselves, they become artists in their own right.

So the next time you admire a painting in a museum, remember: behind every masterpiece, there is often a pen that revealed its magic. And behind every forgotten artist, a critic who failed to see. For in art, as in love, words have this strange power: they can kindle light—or extinguish it.