Sensation

Worked through in 4 videos · 6 passages.

What Dominique Pagani says

Dominique Pagani thinks of sensation in contrast to sentiment. For him, sensation involves the body and not only the heart: a smell is not a sentiment1. He identifies a historical moment when sensation and physical impression take over from Romantic sentiment, in the so-called Symbolist poets2. In Rimbaud, bodily sensations replace Romantic sentiments, something Rousseau had already anticipated3. He reads Baudelaire the same way: in his work it is the body that speaks, and not only the heart4. He extends this observation to music. Beethoven speaks of expressing sensation, not sentiment or painting, which in Pagani's view anticipates Impressionism5. For Dominique Pagani, this Impressionist current is marked by the omnipresence of sensation, through all the senses, because sensation is closer to the body than sentiment is6.

Summary produced automatically from 6 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.

Season 13 · 27 May 2025Flagrante Delights

43:15In Baudelaire, these are not feelings but sensations: it is the body that speaks, not only the heart.
53:47The omnipresence of sensation, through all the senses, characterizes the impressionist movement; sensation is closer to the body than feeling.

Series · 10 Mar 2021Musicosophy 16. Programme music / Pure music

35:01Beethoven speaks of expression of sensation and not of feeling nor of painting, which anticipates impressionism.

Series · 15 Jan 2021Musicosophy 9. Romantic irony and the Vinteuil sonata

14:58Among the so-called symbolist poets, sensation and physical impression take over from romantic sentiment.
54:47Sensation presupposes the body and not only the heart; a smell is not a feeling.

Season 5.2 · 26 Mar 2019#5.5 Nature or Landscape?

1:20:14In Rimbaud, bodily sensations replace romantic feelings; Rousseau had anticipated this.