Beauty as reflected in the mirror of beauty : Torquato Tasso in the visions by Delacroix, Baudelaire and Norwid

The article constitutes a refl ection on non-stereotyped attempts to interpret the myth of Torquato Tasso in the ecphrases of Charles Baudelaire and Cyprian Norwid. The direct source of creative inspiration here proves to be not so much the legend which had grown around the fi gure of the Italian poet (who is regarded almost as the embodiment of the Romantic visions of the brilliant, but rejected artist, a madman and unhappy lover), but a concrete work of art – namely the painting Le Tasse en prison (Tasso in Prison) by Eugene Delacroix as well as the studies and sketches which accompany it. A comparative analysis of the painting, drawings and Charles Baudelaire’s sonnet On “Tasso in Prison”, an epistolary commentary to Delacroix’ painting (letter to Marian Sokołowski from the 9th October 1864) as well as Cyprian Norwid’s lyrical poem Wierny portret (fi thful Portrait) allows one to make some worthwhile observations concerning the links between literature and painting, and in particular the Romantic conception of beauty inspired by beauty and generating beauty.