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d’analyste tout à la fois cruel et subtil.˝ 548 Holbrook Jackson
claims that with such remarks Huysmans ˝does violence,
with his literary emphasis, to these very delicately balanced
pictures.˝ 549 Yet if one examines the painting Repos, or
indeed Au Salon, it becomes apparent that the cynicism and
detachment which Huysmans sees in the paintings is not
solely a product of his own interpretative idiosyncracies.
The description of the brothel in Marthe, for instance (as
Theodore Reff points out 550 ), could be the literary
counterpart of these paintings. Thus the prostitutes are seen
as having
des beautés falotes et vulgaires, des caillettes
agaçantes, des homasses et des maigriottes,
étendues sur le ventre, la tête dans les mains,
accroupies comme des chiennes, sur un
tabouret, accrochées comme des oripeaux, sur
des coins de divans… 551
So it seems that Huysmans’ literary equivalence is not
necessarily always misplaced; and in any case Huysmans’
interest in psychology, in the internal life of the characters
depicted, often prompted such comparisons. To Huysmans,
Degas’ work exemplifies the distinction between
˝unimaginative realism˝ and ˝imaginative reality.˝ 552 It is
fascinating, then, that Degas explicitly articulates the
Wildean radical conflation of lying, art, and artifice: