Art Criticism - The State University of New York

themes and images are often decadent, but if decadence can be pure in the
elevated sense, then this art is an example of sublime innocent decadence, far
removed from the sickly perversions commonly associated with the decadent
movement of the period.
"I am the bridge over which certain of you will pass" Moreau told
Rouault, one of his most avid students. 52 Matisse, another of his students,
shared not only his master's astonishing aesthetic sense of color, but also his
predilection for the use of the arabesque. The seed of the Fauvist's daring and
vibrant use of color was planted in Moreau's classroom. The dream sequences
of the Surrealists acknowledge their debt to Moreau's persistent delving into
his subconscious imagination. The rich foundation of humus (and decadence)
yielded a healthy fresh new fruit, leading to the ultimate conclusion that Gustave
Moreau's art must be a major example of decadence in its most positive sense.
This conclusion has only been reached with the benefit of hindsight. A similar
treatment of the subject written at the beginning of the twentieth century
would most likely also have yielded a guilty verdict. The mitigating circumstances
reflected in Moreau's gift to posterity would, however, have been
unknown. This gift incorporates not just his marvelous artistic l.euvre, but
equally importantly, the incredibly innovative art it inspired. The absence of
such mitigating circumstances would have warranted the charge of unredeemable
decadence against an art which had worked itself into a dead-end.
The overt laudatory criticism of the decadent literati was elicited by
the perception of the inherent decadence of Moreau's art. While the case for
guilt by association is clear, neither Moreau nor this literary circle could envisage
the grand developments in the history of art in the coming decades. Decadence
is most commonly associated with death and decay, and in the case of
the art of Gustave Moreau such associations most certainly exist. They are
balanced if not surpassed in his art, by the regenerative, fertile aspects of
decadence. Within death there is life, a life dependant not only upon the demise
of an old art, but on the wealth of inheritance. The art of the Fauves and
the Surrealists broke dramatically with the traditional corcept of academic art
and while little of this inheritance is immediately apparent, the debt to Moreau
cannot be denied. Despite all attempts in his art to the contrary, the natural
rules of organic life still prevail.
Notes
Charles Baudelaire, The Painter of Modern Life and Other Essays, trans. Jonathan
Mayne (New York, 1965), p. 26; cited in Camille Pagalia, Sexual Personae,
(London and New Haven, 1990), p. 428.
2 Charles Baudelaire, Oeuvres Completes (Paris, 1961), p. 1179; cited in Rhonda
K. Garelick, Rising Star (Princeton, 1998), p. 29
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Art Criticism