Christa Giles

230
part for such interest. It is also true, as we have seen in
Huysmans’ appreciation of Rops, that for the decadent
religious sentiment or awareness often functioned (through
a consciousness of sin) as a stimulus to eroticism. In any
case, art was an escape, and art accordingly should bring us
a ˝new element of pleasure˝ (or horror) and suggest to us a
˝fresh departure of thought, passion, or beauty.˝ 581
As we have seen, because Wilde and Huysmans
maintained that ideally art was an expression of an inner
vision (a corollary of this belief was their emphasis on the
individualism of the artist) they rejected mere imitation of
external reality. It is for this reason that Huysmans named
Bresdin as one of the artists that Des Esseintes admired.
Redon, Bresdin’s pupil, noted that he did not work from
nature because he was unable to, and Bresdin himself
believed that the artist’s internal vision was all. Yet
interestingly, Bresdin’s work betrays an obsessive
attention to detail, an assiduous examination of the
natural world coupled with fantastical subject matter. He
drew on his imagination to create bizarre landscapes and
occasionally fairytale dwellings. His work is described in
A rebours as being ˝rather like the work of a primitive or
an Albert Dürer of sorts, composed under the influence of
opium.˝ 582 In accordance with Wilde and Huysmans’ taste,