Christa Giles

184
In his art criticism Huysmans highlights the
Japanese tendency toward decorative pattern making,
particularly in reference to Walter Crane’s and Kate
Greenaway’s books for children. He finds these works
reminiscent in many ways of O-kou-Sai and he waxes
lyrical over Kate Greenaway’s ˝art de la décoration,˝ in
particular the ˝art de la mise en page,˝ the ˝incessante
variété dans les motifs de l’ornement.˝ 483 Similarly, it is this
art of decoration which Wilde appreciates in Japanese art,
and it is for this reason that he felt that William Morris and
Walter Crane placed too much emphasis on the naturalistic
as opposed to the decorative aspects of such art:
Like Mr. Morris, Mr. Walter Crane quite
underrates the art of Japan, and looks on the
Japanese as naturalists and not as decorative
artists. It is true that they are often pictorial,
but by the exquisite finesse of their touch the
brilliancy and beauty of their colour, their
perfect knowledge of how to make a space
decorative without decorating it . . . and by
their keen instinct of where to place a thing,
the Japanese are decorative artists of a high
order. 484
As Aurier pointed out, artists of the period were
decorative because they articulated ideas through forms