The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1907-08-25

piece, the bar at kno rONoo-berN0rc
Huysmans recognized Manet's indebted
ness TO 0oya.
"Certains' IL q flner volume. Therein
are Puvis de Chavannes. 0ustave Moreau.
Degas. Bartholome. Rafaslli. Stevens.
Tissot. Wsgner-the painter. not the compo-
ssr; Huysmans admits but one form In music,
the Plain Chant Cezanne. Cheret. Whistler
which true to the tradition Of Partisan
carelessness 10 spelled -Wisthler." 40 nszt
years before was called -Hts'-Rops.
Jan Luyken, Millet. Goya, Turner. Bianchi.
and other men and things. He gives To
Mlllet his just need Of praise, no more
he views him as q designer rather than a
great painter. We get Huysmsns In
his quintessence. Scattered through his
novels-if one may dare to ascribe this
title to such an amorphous form-there
are eloquent N burning pages devoted
t. various painters. but not with the am
plitude and cool science displayed in his
studies OF Degas. Moreau. Reps. The Mon
ster in Art--a monstrous subject master
fully handled-or whistler. He literally
discovered Degss. and In future books on
rhetoric surely Huysmans's descriptions
OF Degas's old w~orkwomcn sponging their
creased backs cannot be excluded without
doing violence TO the expressive powers
Of the French language. His eye mirrored
the most minute details in that he was
Dutch Flemish; the same nneroiless scru-
tiny 10 pursued In the life OF the soul
he was Flemish and Spanish: Ruysbroeck
and st. John Of tho Gross. mystics both
with an amazing sense Of the realistic.
Without a spacious imagination Hugs
mans was . mar Of tho subtlest sensi-
bilities. There 10 q wealth Of critical div.
ination In his studies OF Moreau n
Whistler. Twenty or thirty years ago
It was not 30 easy to place these two enig-
mas. Huysmans did %. and. in company
with Degas and Reps, placed them 90 def
initely that critics have paraphrased his
ideas over since. Baudelaire had recog-
nised the glacial genius Of Reps; Hugs
mans definitely oonsecrated 1t in -Certains."
Unhappily il 10 quite untranslatablo into
a prudish tongue like English. which per-
mits the denominations Of the yellow
days doings to appear unrebuked. but
balks most ~virtuously at any artistic pres
entation OF life's deepest truths. For
Huysmans the theme aroused his mordant
wit-Flaubert, Goncourt. Baudelaire were
all summoned at one time or another
in their respective careers TO answer the
charge of poisoning public moralsi And
what malicious commentaries were drawn
and etched by the versatile Ropsi
Extraordinary as are Rops's~ delineations
of Satan, the prose of Huysmans 10 not lees
graphic in interpreting the etched plate.
In de Tout (l90l) there 10. literally. a
little about everything. Not only are
several unknown quarters Of Paris sketched
with a surprising freshness. but Huysmans
goes far afield for his themes. He studies
sleeping cars and the sleepy city Bruges,
the aquarium at Beriin--most fastidious
and most ugly'-the Gobelins, Quentin
Matsys.at Antwerp; but whether In ILLUSTRATE
ing with his pen the mobs at Lourdes or
the intimate habits Of Q Partisan cafe. he
never fails 10 achieve the exact phrase
that Eliminates. Nor is 1t all Grass realism.
His eye. the eye Of a visionary a. well a.
of a painter. penetrates to the marrow of
the soul. II his notations are voiced In
words Of singular clarity and color. that Ia
because he sees with such clearness and ID
endowed with the temperament Of q supreme
literary artist.
"A Rebours,' by some critics considered
his best book. is the history OF q deoadent
soul in search Of an earthly paradise. His
palace Of art 10 nea Paris. and in IL tho
Due des Esseintes assemblies all hat is rare.
perverse. beautiful. morbid and crazy In
modern art and literature. "A Rebours'
against the Grain) Is In reality a very
precious work Of criticism by a distinguished
critical temperament. written in a prose
jewelled and shining. sharp as a DamSsoene
dagger. This French writer's admira-
ton for and understanding of Moreau
has been mentioned. Luyken comes
in for his share; the bizarre Luyken.
OF Amsterdam (ie4e-17i2). Odilon Redon.
the photographer and illustrator Of Pos. Is
Landed by Des Esseintes. Redon's work 10
not lacking In subtlety. yet it is singularIy
disagreeable; possibly the latter quality ID
aimed at by the painter. Redon certainly
had In Poe q oongeniai subject; Baudelaire
also. for he has accomplished some shiver-
ing plates oommemorating .Fleuns du
NAL" The hero. Des Esseintes, sets great
store on the perverse imaginings of Redon.
as he revels in his odor symphonies or
sips o~ontentedly from his liquor organ.
wherein all manner Of liqueurs are COM
bined TO produce true harmonics upon the
gustatory ryan. In his writings Of this
order Huysmans is a Jules Verne Of esthet-
les. He should not be taken too seriously.
Not such intractable reading as Lob
lat withal difficult enough is The Cathe-
dral.- which abounds in glorious chapters
devoted to ecclesiastical painting, sculp-
ture and architecture. 1.-THE Cathedral
-"was as slender and colorless as Roger
Van der Weyden's Virgins. who are 80
fragile, so ethereal. that they might blow
away were they not held down to earth
by the weight Of their brocades and trains"
is a passage in this curious s~torehouse
OF curious liturgical learning. Matsys,
Memling. Dierck Bouts, Van der Weyden.
| painted great religious pictures because
! they possessed a naive faith. Nowadays
your painter has no faith; better. then,
| stick like Degas to ballet girls and not soil
canvas with profane burlesques. Always ex-
treme, Huysmans jumped from the worldly
audacities Of Name to the rebellious Christ
Of Grdnewald. Van Eyck touched him
where Van Dyck did not, He disliked the
"supersensual M sublimated Virgins Of
Cologne and pronounced all Botticelli's
Virgins as masquerading venuses. The
Van der Weyden triptych OF the Nativity