Christa Giles

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The figure of Narcissus suggests the consciousness turned
inward upon itself: a rejection of the vulgar world of
reality. Narcissus therefore implies an aesthetic ideal in a
world of action, a contemplative turning to an inward
world of dreams and daydreams. Further, the idea of
narcissism evokes the autonomy of art, its complete self-
sufficiency. In A soi-même Redon, one of Des Esseintes’
favourite artists, articulates what is for Wilde and
Huysmans at the crux of a work of art – suggestiveness:
All the mistakes which the critics have made
when writing about my work stem from the
fact that they cannot understand that things
must not be defined, understood, limited,
made precise, because everything which is
sincerely and subtly new like Beauty for
instance, carries its own meaning in itself. 344
The two themes coexist in decadent art so that the
autonomy of art, the turning inward of the artist to his own
dream world simultaneously suggests that the aristocrat/
artist is trapped within his own consciousness – isolated
and alone. This idea was of course outlined in the famous
passage in Pater’s conclusion to The Renaissance:
Experience, already reduced to a group of
impressions, is ringed round for each one of
us by that thick wall of personality through