Christa Giles

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Huysmans so admired entitled his semi-abstract paintings
˝nocturnes.˝ Huysmans viewed Whistler’s landscapes as
˝paysages de songes˝ 326 or ˝rêves fluides˝ 327 and celebrated
Whistler as an ˝artiste extralucide, dégageant du reel le
suprasensible.˝ 328 Wilde approves of the purely decorative
arts because they are ˝suggestive˝ and because
colour, unspoiled by meaning, and unallied
with definite form, can speak to the soul in a
thousand different ways. The harmony that
resides in the delicate proportions of lines and
masses becomes mirrored in the mind. The
repetitions of pattern give us rest. The
marvels of design stir the imagination. 329
Huysmans and Wilde praised music for similar reasons.
Indeed, Huysmans’s favourite philosopher felt that music
was the one art form which could move beyond the merely
phenomenal world and express transcendental ideas
because it was the only non-representational art form. The
French symbolist school was greatly influenced by
Schopenhauer’s aesthetic theory. It is significant that Wilde
referred to Salomé as that ˝beautiful coloured musical
thing,˝ 330 even as Huysmans identified Whistler with
Verlaine who moves beyond the confines of poetry to
where ˝l’art du musicien commence.˝ 331 In Verlaine’s
words: