Christa Giles

For life, as Wilde suggests in ˝The Critic as Artist˝, is
˝terribly deficient in form,˝ 25 and therefore we must turn to
art. Indeed, a sense of form is, in his view, the basis of
creative achievement. 26 This obsession with form was
reflected not only in the complex, eccentric, and ornate
style of the decadent artists, but also in Wilde’s and
Huysmans’ concern with the dandy – in their dandaical
attempts to transmute life into art. Of course they take the
idea to its logical (or illogical) conclusion until life becomes
a mere reflection of art, thereby enabling the artist to elude
the world while paradoxically remaining of it.
Art, then, becomes a means of both escaping reality
and simultaneously asserting a total belief in the powers of
the imagination. In A rebours, the ideal is attained by means
of the deception of the senses. It is for this reason that in
The Picture of Dorian Gray, A rebours is referred to as a book
in which ˝The life of the senses was described in the terms
of mystical philosophy.˝ 27 For the decadent, while he
endlessly moves between titillation and momentary
satisfaction of the senses, is paradoxically a cerebral hero, a
product of his society; and despite the fact that may wish to
immerse himself in sensualism, is constantly examining his
life and intellectualizing. Des Esseintes’ and Wilde’s use of
˝the misty upper regions of art˝ 28 in effect becomes the
expression of ˝the unsatisfied longing for an ideal.˝ 29 Thus
rather than going to England, Des Esseintes can simply go
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