Christa Giles

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and Huysmans’ repeated emphasis on ˝style.˝ Style in
decadent parlance becomes a quality independent of any
concept of utility or ethical considerations. Indeed, content
does not precede but follows it and is determined by the
form art takes. The idea that style, not subject, was
significant, or rather that style transcends subject, was
reiterated in Huysmans’ art criticism: ˝. . . les sujets ne sont
rien par eux-mêmes. Tout dépend de la façon dont ils sont
traités,˝ 430 and Wilde echoed this idea:
To an artist so creative as the critic, what does
subject-matter signify? No more and no less
than it does to the novelist and the painter…
Treatment is the test. 431
The materials used became the subject matter of the
painting or the novel. Thus A rebours is described by Dorian
Gray as a ˝novel without a plot˝ and as being ˝written in
that curious jewelled style, vivid and obscure at once.˝ 432 In
The Picture of Dorian Gray, Wilde, like Huysmans, takes as
the subject of his novel a single individual or painting. The
characters of The Picture of Dorian Gray move within a
circumscribed world which deals centrally with verbal
virtuosity. The novel, according to Wilde, consisted of ˝all
conversation and no action.˝ ˝I can’t describe action,˝ he