Christa Giles

upon which Salome’s feet could move like
white doves…The sky was to be a rich
turquoise blue, but by the perpendicular fall
of glided strips of Japanese matting forming
an aerial tent above the terraces. Herod and
Herodias to be in blood-red. 530
207
In the decadent’s view, if art is ˝a method of procuring
extraordinary sensations,˝ 531 it does so by means of
association. The work’s expressivity lies in its ability to set
off this chain of associations whether in painterly or
linguistic terms. In part, it derives its ˝mysteriousness˝ from
this quality, and mystery to the decadent was one of the
most important attributes of a work of art.
Huysmans’ prose poems seem designed to evoke a
similar response. In ˝Camaieu Rouge,˝ for example, the
author begins with a context: a room with red accessories in
which a woman with red hair sits on a couch. The sunshine
˝inundates˝ the room: ˝Cette fanfare de rouge
m’étourdissait,˝ the author tells us, ‘cette gamme d’une
intensité furieuse, d’une violence inouïe, m’aveuglait; je
fermai les yeux …˝ Later, he recalls the scene in terms of the
colour that embodies it:
la nostalgie du rouge m’oppresse plus
lourdement, je lève la tête vers le soleil, et là,
sous ses cuisantes piqûres, impassible, les