Abstract: Stéphane Mallarmé calls for an aristocracy of art. Reality gains grandeur and height in the artwork, signs of the absolute which proceeds from the imagination, and establishes the distinction of the artist. The concern with the work surpassing everything leads Mallarmé to formulate a dream which is unrealisable in a society marked by the total triumph of the bourgeoisie: that the improbable institutions linked to art recall minds to the pre-eminence of aesthetics over economics.
