Joris karl huysmans a rebours illustrations

Title: A Rebours. Engraver: Clement after Leroux. Publisher: Published by FerroudParis. Date: Medium: etchings and wood engravings. Classification: Books. Object Number: Donate icon An illustration of a heart shape "Donate to the archive" User icon An illustration of a person's head and chest. Sign up Log in. Search icon An illustration of a magnifying glass.

Metropolitan Museum Cleveland Museum of Art. Internet Arcade Console Living Room. Open Library American Libraries. The last scion of an aristocratic family, Des Esseintes loathes nineteenth-century bourgeois society and tries to retreat into an ideal artistic world of his own creation. The narrative is almost entirely a catalogue of the neurotic Des Esseintes's aesthetic tastesmusings on literature, painting, and religion, and hyperaesthesic sensory experiences.

In doing so, it broke from Naturalism and became the ultimate example of " Decadent " literature, [ 1 ] inspiring works such as Oscar Wilde 's The Picture of Dorian Gray His early works had been Naturalist in style, being realistic depictions of the drudgery and squalor of working- and lower-middle-class life in Paris. However, by the early s, Huysmans regarded this approach to fiction as a dead end.

It was the heyday of Naturalism, but this school, which should have rendered the inestimable service of giving us real characters in precisely described settings, had ended up harping on the same old themes and was treading water. It scarcely admitted—in theory at least—any exceptions to the rule; thus it limited itself to depicting common existence, and struggled, under the pretext of being true to life, to create characters who would be as close as possible to the average run of mankind.

Huysmans decided to keep certain features of the Naturalist style, such as its use of minutely documented realistic detail, but apply them instead to a portrait of an exceptional individual: the protagonist Jean des Esseintes. Montesquiou's furnishings bear a strong resemblance to those in Des Esseintes's house:. He was shown, too, a sled picturesquely placed on a snow-white bearskin, a library of rare books in suitably-coloured bindings and the remains of an unfortunate tortoise whose shell had been coated with gold paint.

I do not doubt therefore that it was in the most admiring, sympathetic and sincere good faith that he retailed to Huysmans what he had seen during the few moments he spent in Ali Baba 's cave.

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The epigraph is a quotation from Jan van Ruysbroeck 'Ruysbroeck the Admirable'the fourteenth-century Flemish mystic:. I must rejoice beyond the bounds of time Jean des Esseintes is the last member of a powerful and once proud noble family. He has lived an extremely decadent life in Paris, which has left him disgusted with human society.

Huysmans' novel is essentially plotless. The protagonist fills the house with his eclectic art collection, which notably consists of reprints of the paintings of Gustave Moreau such as Salome Dancing before Herod and L'Apparitiondrawings of Odilon Redonand engravings of Jan Luyken. Throughout his intellectual experiments, Des Esseintes recalls various debauched events and love affairs of his past in Paris.

He tries his hand at inventing perfumes and he creates a garden of poisonous tropical flowers. Illustrating his preference for artifice over nature a characteristic Decadent themeDes Esseintes chooses real flowers that apparently imitate artificial ones. In one of the book's most surrealistic episodes, he has gemstones set in the shell of a tortoise.

He dines at an English restaurant in Paris while waiting for his train and is delighted by the resemblance of the people to his notions derived from literature. He then cancels his trip and returns home, convinced that only disillusion would await him if he were to follow through with his plans. Des Esseintes conducts a survey of French and Latin literature, rejecting the works approved by the mainstream critics of his day.

Joris karl huysmans a rebours illustrations: Title: A Rebours. Author: Written

He rejects the academically respectable Latin authors of the " Golden Age " such as Virgil and Ciceropreferring later " Silver Age " writers such as Petronius Des Esseintes praises the decadent Satyricon and Apuleius Metamorphosescommonly known as The Golden Ass as well as works of early Christian literature, whose style was usually dismissed as the "barbarous" product of the Dark Ages.

Among French authors, he shows nothing but contempt for the Romantics but adores the poetry of Baudelaire. Eventually, his late nights and idiosyncratic diet take their toll on his health, requiring him to return to Paris or to forfeit his life. In the last lines of the book, he compares his return to human society to that of a non-believer trying to embrace religion.

Their bold style and daring modernity received praise and scorn in equal measure. With each new volume, his notoriety increased. As the scandal tore through London, the backlash turned towards the notorious magazine and its audacious art editor. In the public mind, Beardsley was already connected to Wilde through his Salome illustrations. When Wilde was seen at his arrest carrying a yellow book in fact a French novel, not The Yellow Bookthe link between the author and the artist was damning.

Outraged crowds broke the windows of the publishing house. John Lane, the publisher, succumbed to pressure and sacked Beardsley. I Ink on paper Tate. Bequeathed by John Lane Beardsley instantly set the tone for the magazine with this design for the first volume. His highly stylised manner, dramatically setting pure white against flat black, was completely new.

The subject, two masked revellers abandoning themselves to hedonism, was also bold. The overt sensuality of the laughing woman was particularly shocking for the time. The Westminster Gazette even commented that the publication should be made illegal. Things only got worse for Beardsley and The Yellow Book in In fact, he was carrying a French erotic novel, which often had yellow covers.

Beardsley, who had collaborated with Wilde on Salome and whose art was strongly linked with The Yellow Book, was caught up in the scandal. He was dismissed as editor for The Yellow Book. Having lost his regular source of income, he was forced to joris karl huysmans a rebours illustration his house and he temporarily moved to France. This is one of the rare drawings in which Beardsley used colour.

It was first printed in black and white as he added the watercolour later. When it was published in the second volume of The Yellow Book, it was accompanied by a caption, probably written by the artist himself. This outlined a darker version of the Cinderella story, in which she is poisoned by powdered glass from her own slippers. Beardsley was fascinated with the depiction of women at their dressing-tables.

Beardsley may have identified with her because she, like him, had tuberculosis. He added washes of watercolour to the drawing between andafter it had been published in The Yellow Book. The title refers to the novel by Alexandre Dumas fils, published inwhich tells the tragic story of a courtesan who sacrificed herself for her lover. The picture is part of a group of drawings of a woman at her dressing table and was originally published simply as Girl at Her Toilet.

Beardsley may have identified with Madeleine Gautier, since, like her, he suffered from tuberculosis and would eventually also die of the disease. The leitmotif of a woman admiring herself in a mirror recalls the paintings of Dante Gabriel Rossettiwhich Beardsley would have known. He may also have had in mind the work of Edgar Degaswho devoted much of his later career to pictures of woman at their toilet.

A solid black mass envelops the lower half of the room and seems about to consume the figure. Her arms have disappeared altogether, and her face is barely revealed above the extravagant collar of her frilly overcoat. The influence of Japanese woodcuts, which Beardsley collected, is apparent in the broad flat areas of colour and the use of silhouette.

The most carefully realised passages in the drawing are the objects on the dressing table and the floral pattern of the wallpaper, which depicts either roses or camellias. However, in general, realism and individuality are suppressed in favour of surface pattern and overall design. Six months later it was illustrated with the present title in Volume Three of The Yellow Book, an avant-garde journal of which Beardsley was art editor.

Between and Beardsley added watercolour washes of pinkish-purple to the drawing, reducing the clarity of the image. Commissioned by a North American publisher, Beardsley made four designs for the macabre tales of Edgar Allan Poe He is betrayed by the shrieks of his black cat, mistakenly enclosed in the wall as well. Beardsley emphasises his delicately pointed fingers here.

Instead it is reminiscent of s aesthetic movement interiors. Her determined expression, and the disparity between the horse and rider, reinforce this. John Lane refused to publish this drawing in The Yellow Book.

Joris karl huysmans a rebours illustrations: Joris-Karl Huysmans. Illustrations by Auguste

Beardsley had ambitions to be a writer and he continued to obsess over the ultimately unfinished novel until his death. It was not long afterwards that he drew this frontispiece for his collection of poems, The Thread and the Path. The figure in the mirror expresses the theme of the first poem: the quest towards a new ideal that transcended traditional definitions of gender and sexuality.

However, the publisher, David Nutt, was shocked by the figure which he believed had both female and male attributes and refused to print it.

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It depicts Venus framed by two statues of male gods in the form of herms. Frederic Leightonthen President of the Royal Academy, was interested in the rising generation of artists and often commissioned drawings from them. Beardsley recorded that Leighton was encouraging about his work and greatly admired this design. Purchased Unusually, it is double-sided.

The subject on the front, Caprice, was painted first and relates closely to The Comedy Ballet of Marionettes I, displayed nearby. It shows a young woman being led through a doorway by an unfinished figure in a fanciful 18th-century costume. In the lateth and 18th centuries, servants in European noble households included people of colour who were often enslaved and people with dwarfism.

This is the only known oil painting by the illustrator Aubrey Beardsley and was painted in the studio of Walter Sickert. It comprises two pictures on one canvas. Caprice, in which a joris karl huysmans a rebours illustration is invited through a doorway by a dwarf, and on the back, Woman with a White Mouse. Both are ambiguous scenes that appear to represent carnival.

This is the only known oil painting by Beardsley and, unusually, it comprises two pictures on the one canvas. The first painting to be completed appears to have been A Caprice, a fanciful yet sinister work, depicting a woman in a black dress with green trimmings and a black dwarf in a red costume. On the other side, painted between the stretchers, is an almost surreal image of a masked woman with a white mouse.

Both works are unfinished, and should be regarded as experimental. A Caprice appears to derive from the drawing Comedy Ballet of Marionettes I, one of a series of three which appeared in the avant-garde journal, The Yellow Book, in July In both drawing and painting the woman is being invited by the sinister dwarf to pass through a doorway.

The sexual connotations of this gesture are made more overt in the drawing, where the phallic form of the door is emphasised. Beardsley was constantly challenging the conventional view of male-female relations and in the second drawing in the series the woman approaches a door symbolising the female sexual organs. Aware of the dramatic potential of black and shadowed areas, Beardsley contrasts areas of dark and light to great effect in both works.

He also employs his favourite complementaries, red and green, to provide a stronger colour note in A Caprice. Stylistically he may have been influenced in these paintings by the early work of William Rothensteinwith whom he shared a studio, and whose pictures are inhabited by similarly bold and gloomy saturated forms. He may also have had in mind the work of the Venetian artist Pietro Longhi The title A Caprice was invented by the Beardsley scholar R.

Masked Woman with a White Mouse was painted second. Beardsley seems to have preferred this side and hung it on the wall in the house he bought in Pimlico. Dismissed from The Yellow Book, Beardsley faced the loss of his income and a newly hostile atmosphere in London. Despite his international fame, his financial situation was precarious, and he was forced to sell his house.

Beardsley left England for Dieppe, the favourite French seaside resort of English writers and artists. There he encountered Leonard Smithers, an enterprising publisher and occasional pornographer. Smithers proposed starting a new magazine to rival The Yellow Book. With Beardsley as art editor and the poet Arthur Symons in charge of literature, The Savoy was launched inat first as a quarterly.

After two issues, Smithers — perhaps unwisely — decided to publish monthly. The consequent strain on his resources meant The Savoy folded after just a year. Smithers was the only publisher who would print work by Wilde or Beardsley at this time. Some booksellers, like W. Smith, refused to display works by Beardsley in their windows. In it, the Roman poet addresses his dead brother.

It attracted considerable praise when it appeared in the seventh number of The Savoy. Beardsley was a great admirer of the poet Alexander Pope Yet in Beardsley embarked on the illustration of his mock-epic poem, The Rape of the Lock Inspired by the linear intricacies of French 18th-century copper-plate engravings, which he admired and collected, Beardsley developed a new, highly decorative style.

This is the first time that so many of the original drawings for the book have been exhibited together. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. The Baron is depicted kneeling at an altar made from a pile of books of love stories. She is unaware, her back turned to him. The fancifully dressed pageboy in the foreground who may be a person with dwarfism seems to reference a similar character in The Toilette scene in the Marriage A-la-mode series by William Hogarth This adds an 18th-century connection to the work.

William Sturgis Bigelow Collection. Belinda, sitting to the right, across the drawing, has sought refuge in the Cave of Spleen. Umbriel, a gnome, is addressing her. This unleashed his delight in grotesque forms:.