Christa Giles

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different kind of beauty which was entirely dependent on
the subjective vision. Thus Wilde considered sin to be ˝an
essential element of progress.˝ Without it, he tells us,
the world would stagnate or grow old or
become colourless. By its curiosity, Sin
increases the experience of the race. Through
its intensified assertion of individualism, it
saves us from monotony of type. In its
rejection of the current notions about
morality, it is one with the higher ethics. 33
Similarly in Là-bas, we are told that ˝one can take pride in
going as far in crime as a saint in virtue.˝ As the aesthetic
criterion was the sole criterion, and as Wilde believed that
sin was ˝the only real colour element in modern life,˝ 34 it
was naturally the province of both the artist and the
creative individual to recreate the world by means of ˝form
and colour.˝ 35 Wilde’s idea that nature is ˝a collection of
phenomena external to man, people only discover in her
what they bring to her,˝ 36 ensured that the sole source of
beauty was art. But of course, as what constituted art was
subjectively determined, the concept of beauty became
essentially a rhetorical one. Further, Huysmans felt, like
Wilde, that any subject was the province of art: ˝Green
pustules and pink flesh are all one to us; we depict both
because both exist, because the criminal deserves to be
studied as much as the most perfect of men.˝ 37