Christa Giles

140
Perhaps more than any other artist at the period
Odilon Redon might be said to be the painter of dreams.
The mysticism, the suggestive quality, the rendition of a
dream world in his paintings, was unlike that of the
fantastical world conjured up by Gustave Moreau.
Moreau’s use of the symbol evoked sensual and literary
correspondences, while Redon’s art attempted to express
directly the unconscious mind. In Huysmans’ view, Goya
and Moreau are Redon’s forefathers, but it is Edgar Allan
Poe who is most nearly Redon’s spiritual antecedent.
Baudelaire’s translation of Poe ensured that he was widely
read in France, and in A rebours Huysmans repeatedly
refers to Poe in connection with Redon. Huysmans quotes
Poe: ˝Toute certitude est dans les rêves˝ 381 in his essay on
Redon, and we are reminded that Redon illustrated Poe’s
tales. In A rebours we are told that, ˝Better perhaps than
anyone else, Poe possessed those intimate affinities that
could satisfy the requirements of Des Esseintes’ mind.˝ 382
Wilde also read and appreciated Poe and found him to be
the ˝marvellous lord of rhythmic expression.˝ 383
Huysmans’ interest had predictable roots. ˝The monstrous
hallucinations˝ 384 and ˝mechanically devised nightmares of
a fevered brain˝ 385 were the qualities which Des Esseintes
appreciated in Poe, and which had their counterpart in