Painting modern life: A history of the flaneur from Baudelaire to Bob Dylan

The flaneur, the spectator of modem life, has been relatively undervalued as a historical figure. Where the flaneur has been studied, there has been an unwavering emphasis on his role in the emergence of modern, urban culture in nineteenth-century Paris. In the twentieth century, the changing nature of modern society and a variety of technological developments both necessitated and encouraged new forms of flanerie, away from a physical presence on the city streets. The mass mediated culture of the twentieth century facilitated the flaneur's move beyond the limits of the city, broadening his frame of reference, and allowing for the fusion of Charles Baudelaire's painter and Walter Benjamin' commodified flaneur through new art forms --- above all photography, film, and the record. Bob Dylan, in the 1960s, demonstrated the possibility of the flaneur's survival through his work, which elucidated the problems of individualism, identity and freedom in post-war American society.