Like many, I did not know much about the greatest French follower of Caravaggio, despite my adoration for the bad boy of the Italian Baroque. The psychology of that human need for solace within architectural interiors floated through my mind the first time I walked through Valentin de Boulogne: Beyond Caravaggio.

Using examples as varied as a windswept garret and the inner mysteries of a wardrobe, Bachelard builds upon the idea that the dreamer, the creator, the poet, the artist within each of us is able to achieve utmost peace and creativity by giving life to poetic images within the walls of our private domestic spaces. He posits that within the most secure and intimate place of all, the home, humankind is able to daydream in a fluid state, and those reveries are driven by the creation of the poetic image. In his 1958 work The Poetics of Space, the French philosopher Gaston Bachelard traces connections among the human consciousness, intimate spaces, and poetics-thus devising a philosophical approach for better understanding our thoughts, daydreams, and memories. 'Daydream transports the dreamer outside the immediate world to a world that bears the mark of infinity.' -Gaston Bachelard Valentin de Boulogne (French, 1591–1632).

Bachelard gaston the poetics of space