Techniques of the Observer: On Vision and Modernity in the 19th Century

ion necessary for Brewster's industrial delirium is made possible by the same forces of modernization that allowed Baudelaire to use the kaleidoscope as a model for the kinetic experience of "the multiplicity of life itself and the flickering race of all its elements."44 43. Sir David Brewster, The Kaleidoscope: Its History, Theory, and Construction [1819], rpt. London, John Murray, 1858, pp. 134-136. 44. Charles Baudelaire, "Le peintre de la vie moderne," Oeuvres complites, Paris, Gallimard, 1961, p. 1161.