Art Criticism - The State University of New York
Art Criticism - The State University of New York Art Criticism - The State University of New York
Huysmans parallels the life of De Rais with the personal temptations of Durtal. He chronicles Durtal's desire to escape ennui through extraordinary sexual and spiritual experience. As Durtal is writing, he begins to receive anonymous letters from a woman. She flagrantly praises his work and describes her ambivalence in meeting him. Huysmans details this ambivalence in Durtal as well. The characters both know that meeting would destroy the exoticized fantasy, the "chimera" which Durtal has envisioned between her letters. Huysmans chose this word for its dual meaning as an unrealistic fantasy and as a fire-breathing she-monster. In this way, his protagonist can imagine extraordinary scenarios with an unknown woman and later resent her for setting fire to his fantasy as he meets her in the flesh. He believes of his chimera, "that with a woman as passionate as this one seemed to be, he would experience superhuman sensations and novel abandon."2 By way of Durtal's chimera, Huysmans relates woman to what can be seen as a sexual anti-climax. The idea that the rarefied, essentialized and artificial is cleaner and more satisfying than reality is a decadent hallmark and, unfortunately for woman, a way in which man can hold her responsible for the dissatisfaction inherent in his unrealistic fantasy. Feverishly distracted, Durtal becomes unable to work and consents to a meeting. When the woman turns out to be Mme. Chantelouve, the wife of a well known Parisian whose salons Durtal has attended, he is not displeased with her looks, though his chimera is extinguished. In between her visits, however, he becomes re-infatuated with her reality. His desire builds up again and they eventually consummate the relationship. As Gilles de Rais replaced one unsatisfying sadistic act for one more rarefied, Durtal finds it is not enough to carryon a mere flirtation; he must sexually possess Mme. Chantelouve. In accordance with the decadent theory set forth, the reality of sex is an enormous let down. Sex of the caliber in Durtal's mind can never exist. Therefore, he ends the affair, lamenting the next morning: "The flesh decisively does not intend that one shall get along without it and indulge in out-of-the-world pleasures which it can partake only on condition that it keep quiet. For the first time, reviewing these turpitudes, he really understood the meaning of that now obsolete word chastity, and he savoured it in all its pristine freshness. Just as the man who has drunk too deeply the night before thinks, the morning after, of drinking nothing but mineral water in future, so he dreamed, today, of pure. affection far from a bed."3 Mme. Chantelouve does not bring a literal sexual death to Durtal so much as she brings death to his richer-than-life fantasy. In his ensuing ennui, Durtal looks for an extraordinary experience in his work. Suddenly, it is no longer enough to do research from afar. He now feels that he cannot continue without first hand knowledge of the Black Mass. Durtal discovers that Mme. Chantelouve is a friend of Canon Docre, 48 Art Criticism
one ofthe few known practitioners of the Black Mass in Paris. Following his curiosity further, under the auspice that it will inform his work, Durtal asks Mme. Chantelouve to arrange with the Canon for an attendance at the mass. In this way, she enters the novel as a spiritual femme fatale, able to facilitate his introduction to a subversive religion: acting as De Rais's Joan of Arc. Again, Huysmans ties woman to evil but now adds a sexual component, which will allow him to levy greater moral judgment against her. He heightens the mystery and terror surrounding this event in a way similar to his extra-sensual portrayal of Durtal's pre-coital desires. Predictably, Durtal finds the Mass horrific in its actuality and he flees with Mme. Chantelouve to the street, whence she entices him into a bar. She takes a private room and pleads with him for sex: "'1 want you,' she said, and she took him treacherously and obliged him to desire her. She disrobed, threw her skirts on the floor, opened wide the abominable couch. A look of swooning ecstasy was in her eyes and a smile of joy on her lips. Suddenly, when he was able to escape, he shuddered, for he perceived that the bed was strewn with fragments of hosts. 'Oh, you fill me with horror! Dress and let's get out of here.' The fetidness of the room nauseated him. Then too, he was not absolutely convinced of Transubstantiation, he did not believe very firmly that the savior resided in that soiled bread, but in spite of himself, the sacrilege he had involuntarily participated in saddened him." Huysmans judges her moral character by way of her arousal at the Mass and through Durtal's sadness in being "involuntarily" involved. This only serves to reinforce her moral turpitude. He, in effect, lets Durtal off the hook, while convincing the reader of his disgust in her sexual and religious perversion. Despite his inclinations toward the rarefied, Durtal is strong enough to resist both spiritual death and (although he succumbs after the Mass to her sexual perversion) sexual death as he then cuts all ties to Mme. Chantelouve. Her positioning as an agent of the Devil makes her a spiritual killer by way of sexual seduction. It would not suffice to place her as a purely spiritual seducer, for the femme fatale is inextricably wound up in sex, as again, she is mother and lover. A similar theme is addressed in Aubrey Beardsley's illustrations of Oscar Wilde's Salome. He imbues his femme fatale with considerably more power than Huysmans. Beardsley's Salome occupies not only a different place of power, but functions in a different relation to evil and to climax while escaping moral judgment as well. Salome, like Mme. Chantelouve, uses sex to spiritually seduce. However, she has a great deal more power. Salome never has to actually give herself sexually to her stepfather Herod. Instead, she uses her sexuality as a bargaining tool for the head of John the Baptist who was spiritually strong enough to withstand her advances. In response to Herod's insistence that she dance for him in return for anything in the kingdom, Salome requests John's head. Acutely aware of herself and the extent to which Herod desires her body, Salome can vol. 17, no. 1 49
- Page 1: Volume 17; Number I ART C.RIT1C1SM
- Page 4 and 5: Art Department State University of
- Page 6 and 7: 4 Art Criticism
- Page 8 and 9: Breaking the Picture Plane: Reflect
- Page 10 and 11: whale saga (more recently Hesse or
- Page 12 and 13: and many of whom were born in Europ
- Page 14 and 15: printed a bullet track fired into a
- Page 16 and 17: music that (like the Mona Lisa) has
- Page 18 and 19: causing by neglect a bitterness amo
- Page 20 and 21: preserved some of the exuberance th
- Page 22 and 23: which inspiration was stabilized. 5
- Page 24 and 25: pain in the eyes of the cripple giv
- Page 26 and 27: Bruckner did in his music) was not
- Page 28 and 29: mortify into hard edges and mushy c
- Page 30 and 31: with the sleep of reason. In the Am
- Page 32 and 33: cent. Its fluidity of happy acciden
- Page 34 and 35: And yet I can imagine these atrocit
- Page 36 and 37: erature the not very evocative work
- Page 38 and 39: maiden" of Marxism (unless things g
- Page 40 and 41: ic he realize that artists suddenly
- Page 42 and 43: The little nonsense that wise men r
- Page 44 and 45: desensitized by the imitated means
- Page 46 and 47: symbolism? If the arts only exist t
- Page 48 and 49: The Femme Fatale as seen in the wor
- Page 52 and 53: ask for the unreasonable and receiv
- Page 54 and 55: ennui or physical distress leads th
- Page 56 and 57: ences cited herein, the femme fatal
- Page 58 and 59: period."2 He traced the tradition b
- Page 60 and 61: suggestion to the artist and the po
- Page 62 and 63: of Moreau's works is vague and myst
- Page 64 and 65: ing her as the femme fatale, or sub
- Page 66 and 67: The subtitle Satanic Decameron evok
- Page 68 and 69: completely mythical. Coupled with a
- Page 70 and 71: Moreau was very much a man of his t
- Page 72 and 73: themes and images are often decaden
- Page 74 and 75: p. 7-8; cited in Pierre Louis Mathi
- Page 76 and 77: Between World War I and World War I
- Page 78 and 79: shown distrust in the new styles. T
- Page 80 and 81: These passages were meant to help g
- Page 82 and 83: man public was voicing disapproval
- Page 84 and 85: y old masters that were more suitab
- Page 86 and 87: Notes 1 Alfred Barr, "Art in the Th
- Page 88 and 89: From Diagnoses to Decadence: A Brie
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- Page 96 and 97: still is traditionally associated w
- Page 98 and 99: is not always recognized as such. H
Huysmans parallels the life <strong>of</strong> De Rais with the personal temptations<br />
<strong>of</strong> Durtal. He chronicles Durtal's desire to escape ennui through extraordinary<br />
sexual and spiritual experience. As Durtal is writing, he begins to receive anonymous<br />
letters from a woman. She flagrantly praises his work and describes her<br />
ambivalence in meeting him. Huysmans details this ambivalence in Durtal as<br />
well. <strong>The</strong> characters both know that meeting would destroy the exoticized<br />
fantasy, the "chimera" which Durtal has envisioned between her letters.<br />
Huysmans chose this word for its dual meaning as an unrealistic fantasy and<br />
as a fire-breathing she-monster. In this way, his protagonist can imagine extraordinary<br />
scenarios with an unknown woman and later resent her for setting<br />
fire to his fantasy as he meets her in the flesh. He believes <strong>of</strong> his chimera, "that<br />
with a woman as passionate as this one seemed to be, he would experience<br />
superhuman sensations and novel abandon."2 By way <strong>of</strong> Durtal's chimera,<br />
Huysmans relates woman to what can be seen as a sexual anti-climax. <strong>The</strong> idea<br />
that the rarefied, essentialized and artificial is cleaner and more satisfying than<br />
reality is a decadent hallmark and, unfortunately for woman, a way in which<br />
man can hold her responsible for the dissatisfaction inherent in his unrealistic<br />
fantasy.<br />
Feverishly distracted, Durtal becomes unable to work and consents<br />
to a meeting. When the woman turns out to be Mme. Chantelouve, the wife <strong>of</strong><br />
a well known Parisian whose salons Durtal has attended, he is not displeased<br />
with her looks, though his chimera is extinguished. In between her visits,<br />
however, he becomes re-infatuated with her reality. His desire builds up again<br />
and they eventually consummate the relationship. As Gilles de Rais replaced<br />
one unsatisfying sadistic act for one more rarefied, Durtal finds it is not enough<br />
to carryon a mere flirtation; he must sexually possess Mme. Chantelouve. In<br />
accordance with the decadent theory set forth, the reality <strong>of</strong> sex is an enormous<br />
let down. Sex <strong>of</strong> the caliber in Durtal's mind can never exist. <strong>The</strong>refore, he<br />
ends the affair, lamenting the next morning: "<strong>The</strong> flesh decisively does not<br />
intend that one shall get along without it and indulge in out-<strong>of</strong>-the-world<br />
pleasures which it can partake only on condition that it keep quiet. For the first<br />
time, reviewing these turpitudes, he really understood the meaning <strong>of</strong> that now<br />
obsolete word chastity, and he savoured it in all its pristine freshness. Just as<br />
the man who has drunk too deeply the night before thinks, the morning after, <strong>of</strong><br />
drinking nothing but mineral water in future, so he dreamed, today, <strong>of</strong> pure.<br />
affection far from a bed."3 Mme. Chantelouve does not bring a literal sexual<br />
death to Durtal so much as she brings death to his richer-than-life fantasy. In<br />
his ensuing ennui, Durtal looks for an extraordinary experience in his work.<br />
Suddenly, it is no longer enough to do research from afar. He now feels that he<br />
cannot continue without first hand knowledge <strong>of</strong> the Black Mass.<br />
Durtal discovers that Mme. Chantelouve is a friend <strong>of</strong> Canon Docre,<br />
48<br />
<strong>Art</strong> <strong>Criticism</strong>