“Jeter à la face de son siècle le plus excessif outrage" La critique d'art de Joris-Karl Huysmans, une démarche décadente

Authors

  • Aude Jeannerod University Jean Moulin Lyon 3, University Nancy 2

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7557/13.2041

Keywords:

Joris-Karl Huysmans, critique d’art, décadence, transgression

Abstract

Although Joris-Karl Huysmans is mostly known for his famous novel À Rebours (1884), his first steps as a writer were made in art criticism, with an article published in La Revue mensuelle about the landscape painters at the Exposition Universelle that took place in Paris in 1867. From then on, his work as an art critic often echoed his novels, expressing the same views on aesthetics and civilisation. This article discusses to what extent Huysmans's art criticism during the eighteen-eighties comes under the Decadence and an aesthetic of transgression, as well as À Rebours does. Indeed, the art critic promotes a renewal of French painting which would transgress all the prevailing policies. Furthermore, Huysmans himself breaks the laws in various ways: he violates aesthetic rules by blaming academism and standing up for independent painters; he oversteps moral boundaries asserting that art has nothing to do with morality; he infringes social standards by satirizing the bourgeoisie. On numerous occasions, Huysmans uses the transgressive power of humour to show his contempt for the constraints of tradition and his hatred toward his time.

Author Biography

Aude Jeannerod, University Jean Moulin Lyon 3, University Nancy 2

Aude Jeannerod est doctorante en Langue et littérature françaises à l'Université Jean Moulin Lyon 3 et ATER à l'Université Nancy 2. Sous la direction de Jérôme Thélot,
elle travaille sur le rapport au réel dans la critique d'art de Joris-Karl Huysmans. Elle collabore également à l'édition des OEuvres complètes de Joris-Karl Huysmans en préparation chez Classiques Garnier, sous la direction de Pierre Glaudes et Jean- Marie Seillan.

Elle a notamment publié "Le genre de la critique d'art chez J.-K. Huysmans: fiction ou non-fiction?" dans la Revue d'Histoire Littéraire de la France (111e année, n°2, avril-juin 2011, 341-356) et "La critique d'art de J.-K. Huysmans entre discours journalistique et discours littéraire" dans Interférences littéraires (www.interferenceslitteraires.be, n°6, mai 2011, 61-78).

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Published

2012-03-26

How to Cite

Jeannerod, Aude. 2012. ““Jeter à la face de son siècle le plus excessif outrage" La critique d’art de Joris-Karl Huysmans, une démarche décadente”. Nordlit, no. 28 (March):1-11. https://doi.org/10.7557/13.2041.