"Today I want to discourse to the public about a strange man, a man of so powerful and so decided an originality that it is sufficient unto itself and does not seek approval. Not a single one of his drawings is signed, if by signature you mean that string of easily forgeable characters which spell a name and which so many other artists affix ostentatiously at the foot of their least important trifles. Yet all his works are signed - with his dazzling soul (...) A passionate lover of crowds and incognitos, Monsieur C.G. carries originality to the point of shyness. (...) He drew like a barbarian, or a child, impatient at the clumsiness of his fingers and the disobedience of his pen."

- Charles Baudelaire, writing in favour of "Monsieur C.G" (Constantin Guys, 1802-92)

Source: Baudelaire, Charles. 1859. Originally printed in essay "Le Peintre de la Vie Moderne". Le Figaro, Paris, 26 & 28 November and 3 December 1863. Translation by Jonathan Mayne (ed). 1964. The Painter of Modern Life and Other Essays. In Chapter: III - The Artist, Man of the World, Man of the Crowd, and Child. London: Phaidon Press. p.5-6. Available online from http://www.columbia.edu/itc/architecture/ockman/pdfs/dossier_4/Baudelaire.pdf [Downloaded 2010-05-26].