Christa Giles

214
salauderie populacière et de grâce! Combien
sont ravissantes, presque divines, parmi ces
petits souillons qui repassent ou portent du
linge… 544
Huysmans’ perception of Degas’ laundresses as ˝little sluts
who iron and carry linen˝ suggests, once again, how on
occasion the literary approach to painting predominates in
his criticism. Indeed, he did claim that Degas’ paintings
had their equivalent in the literature of the Goncourt
brothers. 545 This mode of approach, whether one finds it
limiting or not, is consistent with Wilde’s and Huysmans’
desire to view art as seminal and provocative, the starting
point of a new creation; in addition it reflects their belief
that the arts are interdependent. Degas’ work combined a
realism with an overall organising formal structure,
transforming realism into an aestheticization of his
personal vision. For this reason, Degas’ work appealed to
Huysmans’ two concerns: naturalistic observation and
artifice.
Degas’ work then exemplified what Huysmans
viewed as modernity. He depicted human bodies in
contorted positions, in highly organised patterns of artifice.
His use of asymmetrical composition, and his adoption of
unusual viewpoints, distances the viewer from the objects