The French poet Théophile Gautier, born in 1811, first studied painting because of his love for the visual, which later became apparent in his poetry. In 1830 he was the foremost supporter of Victor Hugo's play Hernani.

He founded the doctrine of Art for Art's sake and proclaimed it in the preface to his novel Mademoiselle de Maupin in 1835. One sees this doctrine best presented in his most famous poetic work Émaux et camées, published in 1852, which establishes him as one of France's leading poets.

THE POT OF FLOWERS

Sometimes a small boy finds a tiny seed
And takes a porcelain pot whose colours charm
His eye to serve as a garden-bed,
Where monstrous blossoms and blue dragons swarm.

He goes away. Down snakes the coiling root;
The stem lifts from the soul, grows, branches out;
While deeper daily dives its hairy foot,
Until it bursts the belly of the pot.

The child comes back. He wonders much to see
Above the shards the stout green daggers dart;
The stalk is tough; he cannot tug it free;
Against the thorns his stubborn fingers smart.

So, in my wondering soul, is love begot:
A simple flower of Spring I thought I'd sown;
In coloured fragments lies the porcelain pot
Where a huge aloe's root went thrusting down!

        (translated by Brian Hill)

CHINOISERIE

It is not you, no, madam, whom I love,
Nor you either, Juliet, nor you,
Ophelia, nor Beatrice, nor that dove,
Fair-haired Laura with the big eyes; No.

She is in China whom I love just now;
She lives at home and cares for her old parents;
From a tower of porcelain she leans her brow,
By the Yellow River, where haunt the cormorants.

She has upward-slanting eyes, a foot to hold
In your hand-- that small; the colour shed
By lamps is less clear than her coppery gold;
And her long nails are stained with carmine red.

>From her trellis she leans out so far
That the dipping swallows are within her reach,
And like a poet, to the evening star
She sings the willow and the flowering peach.

(translated by A. J. M. Smith)