Christa Giles

173
recognition, nor to the faculty of reason, but to the aesthetic
sense alone.˝ 459 These views paved the way towards an
appreciation of abstract art through the affirmation of the
artist’s right to alter nature to conform to subjective
standards of truth.
In his article on Whistler, Huysmans mentions the
famous trial and refers to the exhibition in which Whistler
showed his Nocturne in Black and Gold (1875). The painting
was shown with seven other works at the Grovesnor
Gallery in London in an exhibition designed to express the
concept of ˝art for art’s sake.˝ Whistler, Huysmans notes
appreciatively, moved – like Verlaine – towards the world
of music, and aspired to attain a realm of pure pattern and
form which is entirely non-representational. It is interesting
that in his poems ˝Le Panneau’ and ˝Le Jardin, La Mer,˝
Wilde attempts to capture moments in a visual,
impressionistic manner reminiscent of Whistler’s paintings.
When Huysmans and Wilde asserted the importance
of the expression of the individual in art, this idea implied
that it was the creation of a new form which constituted
that individual statement. For once created, ˝to reveal art
and conceal the artist is art’s aim.˝ 460 Thus, while art spoke
to its audience and sprang from the artist’s personality, it
was essentially hermetic in the sense that music is hermetic.