Christa Giles

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the end result is entirely hermetic and self-sufficient. By
extension, the artist, in his rejection of nature, does not
necessarily have to create art which is representational. As
Gilbert says, in ˝The Critic as Artist˝:
art that is frankly decorative is the art to live
with…Mere 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…By its deliberate
rejection of Nature as the ideal of beauty, as
well as of the imitative method of the
ordinary painter, decorative art not merely
prepares the soul for the reception of true
imaginative work, but develops in it that
sense of form which is the basis of creative no
less than of critical achievement. 451
In the same vein, Huysmans speaks of decoration as
generating a sense of stasis, the patterns producing a lulling
effect. Thus Whistler’s paintings evoke ˝de subtiles
suggestions et berce, à d’autres, de même qu’une
incantation.˝ 452 What is produced in the onlooker is a purely
aesthetic response as opposed to, say, an ethical one. Thus