Christa Giles

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and self-conscious use of detail would obviously hold great
interest for Wilde and Huysmans. Wilde visited Moreau’s
studio in 1883 and was extremely impressed. It was
unlikely that Wilde, whose aesthetic was ˝la philosophie de
l’irrealité,˝ 518 would not respond to Moreau’s work. For
much of Moreau’s imagery was derived from Flaubert;
indeed, according to Gustave Larroumet, Flaubert was
Moreau’s favourite author, one
…in whom he found the curious turn of mind
and the splendor of form which he achieved
himself, and also the haunting memory of the
Oriental mirage; the Flaubert of Salammbô
and La Tentation de Saint-Antoine, needless
to say, rather than the Flaubert of Madame
Bovary. 519
The vision of an exotic Orient – mysterious, cruel, and
passionate– became a commonplace at the turn of the
century. The hunger for the exotic was a product of this
desire to abandon oneself to a land of dreams. Further, this
concern with myths and dreams allowed for extremes:
scenes of debauchery, violence, and passion. The femme
fatale, in particular, became a kind of icon –cruel,
unattainable, and exotic. In A rebours, Huysmans describes
Flaubert’s appeal for Des Esseintes in terms of these
preoccupations: