Christa Giles

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than exclusively subject matter and context. The quality
most necessary in the art critic was therefore deemed quite
simply to be ˝the temperament of receptivity.˝ 507 Because a
great work of art is in Huysmans’ and Wilde’s opinions a
purely individual statement, it was necessary that the critic
be capable of appreciating originality, the way in which the
work of art differed from all that had been produced in the
past. Thus
A temperament capable of receiving, through
an imaginative medium, and under
imaginative conditions, new and beautiful
impressions, is the only temperament that can
appreciate a work of art. 508
It is the man who can appreciate that a ˝new work of art is
beautiful by being what Art has never been˝ 509 who is the
possessor of taste. Huysmans, although he never explicitly
articulated this view, took a similar position in his art
criticism. In his assessment of Degas, for example, he
underlines the artist’s personal vision, stressing his
originality in a new use of an old medium:
…un peintre qui ne dérivait de personne, qui
ne ressemblait à aucun, qui apportait une
saveur d’art toute nouvelle, des procédés
d’exécution tout nouveaux. 510