HUYSMANS' EYE: MANET, DEGAS, MOREAU STRASBOURG MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY ART MUSEUM UNTIL 7 FEBRUARY 2021 - Musées de Strasbourg
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HUYSMANS' EYE:
MANET, DEGAS, MOREAU…
STRASBOURG MODERN AND
CONTEMPORARY ART MUSEUM
UNTIL 7 FEBRUARY 2021
Press Relations
Museums Communication Department
Julie Barth
julie.barth@strasbourg.eu
tel. 03 3 68 98 74 78
Press kit and visuals downloadable at:
www.musees.strasbourg.eu
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1. EXHIBITION PROJECT PAGE 2
2. EXHIBITION ITINERARY PAGE 3
3. JORIS-KARL HUYSMANS CHRONOLOGY PAGE 9
4. SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY PAGE 12
5. HUYSMANS' WRITINGS: EXTRACTS PAGE 14
6. LIST OF LENDERS PAGE 17
7. PUBLICATIONS PAGE 18
8. PARTNERS PAGE 20
9. VISITOR INFORMATION PAGE 21
10. PRESS VISUALS PAGE 22
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1. Exhibition Project
The MAMCS exhibition, held in partnership with the Musée d'Orsay, lays a trail through
the work of the writer Joris-Karl Huysmans (1848-1907). It presents the writings, works
and objects that together contributed to forging the different worlds he inhabited, seen
in a turn-of-the-century perspective hovering between a fascination with progress and a
morbid curiosity for the occult.
A noted figure of Naturalism (considered as "Zola's spiritual son"), the chronicler of a rapidly
changing Paris, an enlightened art critic, Decadent author and Catholic writer – Huysmans was
all these at once. The roles were not mutually exclusive, but superimposed like so many layers
of glaze under the brush of an Italian Primitive. "Exhibiting" Huysmans is a challenge, because
such a project involves bringing together widely contrasting works, objects and writings: Edgar
Degas' flesh-tints and Félicien Rops' shadows, precious volumes and medical treatises, elegant
perfumes and knick-knacks. Huysmans is a word-hoarder and – regardless of what he is writing,
whether it be newspaper articles, novels or personal correspondence – he offers his reader
dazzling inventories woven from colours, materials and sensations.
A complementary and enriched version of the project developed by the Musée d'Orsay, this
exhibition is designed as a series of paintings, each with its own atmosphere. It is arranged in
ten rooms going from a boudoir to a Paris street, from the Paris Salon to a description of the
home of Des Esseintes, the iconic hero of À Rebours (1884), and includes the favoured subjects
of Huysmans' last years, architecture and religious art. The visitor is invited to discover a world in
which disparate topics rub shoulders: modernity (as seen by Huysmans) and Latin decadence,
the Issenheim altarpiece and the Folies-Bergères, dream and melancholy.
The exhibition brings together a number of prestigious loans. It presents more than 440 works
and artefacts coming from the Orsay and Orangerie museums (Manet, Degas, Moreau,
Caillebotte, Pissarro, Gervex, Bouguereau ...), the National Library of France, the Paris Arts and
Crafts Museum, the Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilizations (Mucem, Marseille),
and in Strasbourg the National and University Library, the Garden of Sciences and the Museums
of Strasbourg.
Exhibition Curator: Estelle Pietrzyk, Chief Heritage Curator, Directress of MAMCS.
The Strasbourg lap of this exhibition has benefited from the expertise of Robert Kopp, Professor
of French literature, University of Basel.
Exhibition being held by the Museums of the City of Strasbourg and the museums of Orsay and
l'Orangerie, Paris, with the exceptional assistance of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France and
the Bibliothèque Nationale et Universitaire de Strasbourg.
This exhibition benefits from the exceptional support of the Eurometropole de Strasbourg and
the support of Lubin Perfumes.
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2. Exhibition Itinerary
Prelude
"... [Des Esseintes] had given a funeral dinner. Draped in black, the dining room opened on to a
garden transformed for the occasion, the paths being strewn with charcoal dust, the ornamental
pond edged with black basalt and filled with ink and the shrubberies replanted with cypresses
and pines. The dinner itself was served on a black cloth, decorated with baskets of violets and
scabious [...]" This description of the funeral dinner given by Des Esseintes in À Rebours (Against
the Grain, 1884) represents a high point of Decadent aesthetics, for which the novel became a
veritable textbook. Our exhibition opens with a work that can readily be associated with this
memorable episode. Many Spoken Words (2009), by the contemporary Luxembourg artist Su-
Mei Tse (born in 1973 and trained as a musician) is a bizarre yet superb fountain, endlessly
gushing black-tinted water. It suggests the artist's musical training and her interest in sound.
With a sure sense of staging, Su-Mei Tse embarks on a series of poetic subversions, inciting us
to reflect on time or to contemplate and question objects and situations. This is the first of the
exhibition's contemporary references.
The Comfit Box
"He made his debut with a mediocre collection of prose poems, entitled Le Drageoir aux Épices
(The Comfit Box)." Thus, under the pen name of A. Meunier, does Huysmans present his
beginnings in Les Hommes d’Aujourd’hui (The Men of Today) in 1885. Whether real or feigned,
such self-deprecation was scarcely justified: the manuscripts preserved (loaned for the
exhibition by the Bibliothèque Nationale de France) are evidence of the great concern for form
given to this book. In addition to prose poems with evocative titles (Rococo Japonais, Camaïeu
Rouge, L’Extase), the collection contains short narratives (Claudine), monographs of fictional
painters (Adrien Brauwer, Cornélius Béga), strolls through Paris (La Rive Gauche), pastiches
(Variation sur un Air Connu) and art transpositions (La Kermesse de Rubens). The dedicatee of
Baudelaire's Petits Poèmes en Prose, Arsène Houssaye, was not wrong to describe the
collection as a "little curiosity cabinet".
The first exhibition room displays what are described in the book's dedication as the "little
ornaments", the "frills and flounces" that went to make up the world of the young clerk from the
Ministry of the Interior dreaming of colours or materials, Dutch landscapes or Japanese curios,
Queen Margot or kippers. A crystal comfit box, improbable table bells, bonbon dishes, old
engravings are arranged in a circle around portraits of the writer by Forain, Vallotton or André
Breton, some dating from his lifetime, others posthumous.
Parisian Sketches
Huysmans liked to present himself as "an unaccountable mixture of refined Parisian and painter
from Holland". Born a stone's throw from Notre-Dame in an old house in the Latin Quarter, he
spent his life endlessly pacing the length and breadth of his cherished city and painting it after
the manner of Rembrandt or Jan Steen. In his bohemian student days, he frequented theatres
and dance halls, falling in love with an actress from the famous Bobino music hall, and
acclaiming her in his very first reviews. As evidence the of the French capital's vitality at the
time, the "Parisian Sketches" room displays a large collection of period posters from the
MAMCS collection, depicting the world of entertainment and literature or advertisements for
everyday objects.
Later, when he was a "sixth grade" employee at the French Ministry of the Interior, he became a
chronicler of important developments in the Paris of his time. While distressed by Haussmann's
demolitions, he was impressed by the grandiose quality of the 1889 Universal Exhibition and he
expressed his enthusiasm for the new, eminently modern, iron-frame architecture. But above all,
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his sympathy went to places that seemed made for dreaming: the Bièvre, a stricken little river
soon to disappear, the humble alleys of the suburbs and Paris' old districts and cafés, his
descriptions of their habitués anticipating those of today's sociologists.
Huysmans at the Salon
"Of the 3,040 paintings included in the brochure, not a hundred are worth taking seriously," was
Huysmans' peremptory declaration on completing his visit to the Salon in 1879.
Established by the French Royal Academy of painting and sculpture under Louis XIV, the Salon
had quickly become an essential event. From the time of Diderot onwards, reviewing the Salon
became a literary pursuit soon to be cultivated by writers like Stendhal, Théophile Gautier,
Baudelaire, the Goncourt brothers, Zola and of course Huysmans himself, who became a regular
and at times implacable chronicler of the event. The present exhibition room gives us an idea of
this annual rendezvous, in which thousands of works displaying great disparity of genre, style
and indeed talent were exhibited in closely serried rows. The imaginary "Salon" devised for our
exhibition juxtaposes several actual salons (both official and independent ones) bringing
together a series of exceptional works, with Huysmans' loves and hates coexisting in the same
perspective. Merciless towards established figures (his review of Bouguereau's Birth of Venus is
a choice specimen of his corrosive critical style), Huysmans in contrast praises painters who
have a "concern for contemporary life", giving pride of place to Degas, Caillebotte and Raffaëlli.
Decadent Affinities
Decadents, Symbolists, poètes maudits ... The final decades of the 19th century saw the
emergence of a disparate cluster of writers in whom Huysmans took an active interest. Some of
the authors he places in Des Esseintes' "ideal" decadent library were also his friends. While
Baudelaire is the all-enfolding tutelary guardian of À Rebours, there are tributes to the Verlaine
of the Sagesse poems, to Goncourt's La Faustin, to Mallarmé's L'Après-Midi d'un Faune,
Flaubert's Tentation de Saint Antoine and to Villiers de L’Isle-Adam. All these were writers whom
Huysmans encountered every week – at Mallarmé's "Tuesdays", the Goncourts' "Grenier" or his
own more intimate suppers in his home at 11 rue de Sèvres. Jean Lorrain, an eccentric reveller
of fin-de-siècle Paris, drew heavily on the style of À Rebours for his Monsieur de Phocas. Robert
de Montesquiou, on the other hand, a dandy, collector and poet, never forgave Huysmans for
using him as a model for Des Esseintes and making him the archetype of the decadent æsthete.
The Art of Nuance
Published in 1884, À Rebours marked a break with Naturalism and a turn to the "artistic
writing" favoured by the Goncourt brothers. In this book, described in Wilde's Portrait of Dorian
Gray as "poisonous", Huysmans relates the neuroses of the anti-hero Count Jean Floressas des
Esseintes. Reduced to nervous asthenia by the vanity of all things, Des Esseintes retires to a
meticulously laid-out dwelling "far from the world" (echoing the title of one of Baudelaire's Petits
Poèmes en Prose, ) –actually, Fontenay-aux-Roses is only ten kilometres away from Paris – and
finds consolation for his melancholy in his collections of works of art, books and precious
objects. Huysmans delights in describing hangings, tapestries and furniture, as well as the
hero's numerous whims, always in search as he is of an exact shade, a particular savour or a
precise nuance. This retreat, supposedly protecting him from the boredom and mediocrity of the
world, becomes a setting for extreme aesthetic and sensory experiences, all related in a
language of unique precision. Like a colourist painter, Huysmans moves from carmine to
vermilion, from Cassius purple to wine lees, from a "raw meat" shade to Saturn red.
Like Strindberg's "Red Room", this exhibition room presents collections of objects from the
world of technical culture, such as the colour charts used by textile manufacturers and the
palettes used by enamel painters, as well as a selection of late 19th century wallpapers. The
room also contains a "little theatre" enacting the dialogue between the Sphinx and the Chimera,
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in which Des Esseintes hires a ventriloquist to recite through the creatures' mouths, as it were,
an extract from Gustave Flaubert's La Tentation de Saint Antoine (1874).
Finally, the room presents the second contemporary work of art acquired for the exhibition. This
is a cabinet of curiosities, The Unruly Collection by the North American artist Mark Dion (born in
1961). It brings together forty-three supposedly "natural" curiosities. In fact, all are by the artist's
hand.
In Praise of Artifice and Sensation
With À Rebours, Huysmans carried to their extremes Baudelaire's "correspondences" in which
"perfumes, colours and sounds echo each other". Progressively losing touch with reality, Des
Esseintes becomes intoxicated with sophisticated sensations and aesthetic pleasures.
Perfumes, liqueurs, silky materials and precious objects fill the home of the hero of À Rebours,
who is also an informed bibliophile and collector of works of art.
In this room, the visitor is invited to smell the perfumes experienced in Huysmans' home with
the help of an olfactory device recalling Des Esseintes' "perfume organ." This has been specially
recreated for the exhibition by Maison Lubin, already Huysmans' supplier at the time. Thus, at
the exhibition's mid-point, Heliotrope, Opoponax, Patchouli, Tea Rose and the inimitable
Frangipani provide a moment of pure synesthesia.
As regards paintings, we may note that in his fervent admiration for Gustave Moreau, the
creator of "enchantments hatched in the brain of an opium eater", Huysmans' vision as a
novelist and art critic coincides with that of his fictional counterpart. The Apparition (1875) gives
rise in the novel to a long reverie. Here in the exhibition, it is Galatée (1880) which illuminates a
room also displaying several drawings from nature by Gustave Moreau, accompanied by aquatic
plants, corals and other specimens which were his models (all from the Strasbourg Zoological
Museum collections).
Hoarding not only works of art, but treasures and curiosities of all kinds in a home which had
become an improbable museum designed for his own personal delectation, Des Esseintes soon
tired of objects that quickly lost their bloom, resorting to artefacts of all kinds. Simulated nature
took on greater value than nature itself and artifice came to be conceived as "the hallmark of
human genius." Here, the passion for artefacts is illustrated by the mock stones prized by the
late 19th century, textile blossoms and an amazing bouquet of porcelain flowers.
In Praise of Artifice © FCS workshop - Frédéric Casanova Scenographer
A Taste for the Uncanny
"All fins-de-siècles are alike" wrote Huysmans in Là-Bas (1891). Here, he is expressing a
characteristic late 19th century dilemma, a conflict between the impression of having used up
all the resources of the dying century and a quest, no doubt vain, for a new modernity. Plunging
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into the uncanny in search of new sensations is also something that attracts Des Esseintes. Like
the book's author, the decadent hero of À Rebours is closely interested in the interpretation of
dreams, in the new treatments for neuroses or the beginnings of psychiatry. Huysmans, deeply
concerned by the nervous illness of his partner, Anna Meunier, ("Louise" in En Rade, 1887),
studied a number of medical treatises. The book, whose chapters alternate real episodes with
dreams or nightmares, serves here as the basis for an imaginary journey across the moon,
represented by a lunar globe from Strasbourg's Jardin des Sciences collection.
In the realm of art, it was Odilon Redon who best embodied this longing for the far-off,
considered by Huysmans as "a fantasy world of sickness and derangement". Indeed, his series
of prints (Hommage à Goya, Sur le Rêve, Edgar Poe), cherished by their admiring critic
Huysmans, project an imaginative world of shadowy symbolism that seems an echo of Des
Esseintes' nightmares.
A Taste for the Uncanny © FCS workshop - Frédéric Casanova Scenographer
Occult Experiments
While En Rade (1887) is a novel of dreams and the unconscious, Là-Bas (1891) is one of
Satanism. Seeking a remedy for the "purulence of a repulsive age", Huysmans set out in search
of knowledge that men have attempted to acquire from time immemorial through witchcraft,
black magic, esotericism, astrology, clairvoyance and the occult sciences. He thus made his
hero set out to write a biography of Gilles de Rais, whose hideous crimes made the Marquis de
Sade seem "a mere timorous bourgeois". In this room can be seen Félicien Rops' darkest and
most blasphemous engravings, while a tarot deck, an alchemy primer and jars of ingredients for
obscure preparations suggest the late 19th century fascination with the occult. Added to these
are books by Barbey d'Aurevilly (Les Diaboliques) and Le Sâr Peladan evoking the fascination
with Satanism on which Huysmans had gathered considerable documentation in writing his
novel.
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Occult Experiments © FCS workshop - Frédéric Casanova Scenographer
Spiritual Upliftings
After writing À Rebours, Huysmans found himself in an existential impasse. The writer Barbey
d'Aurevilly says that he was left with the choice "between the muzzle of a pistol and the feet of
the cross." He chose the cross. After writing Là-Bas, devoted to the occult, Huysmans turned to
Christian mysticism. In En Route (1892), he describes the difficult conversion to catholicism of
his fictional persona Durtal which, like his own, takes place after several retreats in a Trappist
monastery. After Là-Bas and its descent into hell, Huysmans attempts the ascent towards God.
He haunts churches and is enraptured by Gothic architecture. The cathedrals of Paris, Chartres,
Reims, Strasbourg, the Église Saint-Séverin, all are shrines of "total art" where the soul can
climb to the heights, uplifted by slender pillars, incense, and the divine melody of plain-song of
which Huysmans was a fervent admirer and a learned commentator. The church, "a mass of
stone with a strictly spiritual destination" (Paul Valéry), materialised a dreamt-of refuge for
senses and spirit alike. Here, at last, Huysmans had found "chlorine for his soul".
Art as Religion
As the fictional abbé of En Route rightly observes, "It is quite certain that Art was the main
agency used by the Saviour to instil faith into us". What inspired Huysmans' conversion was
above all his love of Christian art and the delight he took in religious architecture and music. His
spiritual life was influenced by the works of the so-called "Primitives" and he revered religious
artists of the 15th and 16th centuries like Memling, the "Master of Flémalle", Fra Angelico or
Rogier van der Weyden. But his greatest revelation was the work of Matthias Grünewald, a
Rhineland painter from the same period. Here was proof for Huysmans that mind could dwell in
the very heart of matter. To the old masters were added contemporary painters admired by the
writer. Charles-Marie Dulac's mystical landscapes and Odilon Redon's visions acted as
"springboards" for his inward raptures. Followed by a community of artist and writer friends,
Huysmans even became an oblate in the monastic community of Ligugé in the Vienne
department, an episode related in the eponymous novel The Oblate of St. Benedict. Even as they
continued to lead their everyday existences, for several years they immersed themselves in the
abbey's spiritual life.
Huysmans died in 1907 of cancer of the jaw causing him terrible pain. His last writings were
entirely concerned with his relation to mysticism (Sainte Lydwine de Schiedam, 1901), Les
Foules de Lourdes (1906). The exhibition's final flourish is a plethora of books, in particular a
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French manuscript translation of Saint Augustine's City of God, a treasure from the Strasbourg
University Library specially loaned for the exhibition.
Exhibition Scenography
Designed by F.C.S., the Frédéric Casanova scenography workshop, the Huysmans' Eye
scenographic project aims to achieve a fluid succession of changing moods, with Huysmans'
writing as the central element. This itinerary eschews the hierarchy of genres, celebrating both
the masterpiece and the modest object and giving maximum visibility to the author's writings,
which are at the heart of the exhibition project.
The exhibition is in fact built around Huysmans' writings and, in particular, around his
idiosyncratic habit of putting together "catalogues" in which the most disparate elements rub
shoulders: outstanding works of art and obscure ones, precious objects and knick-knacks, rare
volumes and run-of- the-mill editions. It is the writer's style that allows us to slip easily from one
subject to another; whether in the role of art critic, novelist or letter writer, his style is inventive
and the words always carefully chosen.
Mounting an exhibition about a writer means facing the challenge of bringing his writings to life,
identifying their distinctive quality. Working in tandem with the curator, the scenography team
has set out to achieve this by giving visitors the chance to experience a real "encounter" with
Huysmans' writing.
The exhibits are thus accompanied by extracts of varying length from Huysmans' critical reviews,
novels and correspondence. However fleetingly the visitor may feel inclined to take these in,
Huysmans' writing is not just a background to the objects, be they masterpieces or mere
artefacts. It forms the cornerstone of the exhibition.
The scenographic project invites the visitor to perceive the different spatial experiences as so
many facets of Huysmans' writing: the room of the Comfit Box, for example, is a kind of boudoir,
the setting of the Parisian Sketches is a Paris street, while the works gathered around the novel
À Rebours summon up the muted atmosphere of a domestic interior.
Books of all kinds can be found throughout the exhibition: from the novel to the medical
treatise, from the horticultural manual to the slang dictionary, they give us glimpses of
Huysmans' methods (not to mention his idées fixes) and tireless, even obsessive, research into
his subjects. Thus the "niches" found at several points in the exhibition are like miniature
libraries, their contents chosen as much for the beauty of editions prized by our author as for
their titles.
The scenography also brings us “little scenes”, disparate objects creating Huysmansian
encounters occurring within the same visual field: a lunar globe and different kinds of medicine;
Gustave Moreau's Galatée and a collection of corals; botanical plates side-by-side with
illustrations of the initial symptoms of syphilis.
The exhibition procures a multi-sensory experience. Not only does it catch the visitor's eye, with
shades ranging from old rose to heady carmine, but our sense of smell is stimulated by
Huysmans' treasured perfumes and there are even "audio sources" to beguile the ear. Through
the senses, it gives access to the writer's world and invites us to a contemporary reading of a
major literary work, to be shared by all.
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View of the exhibition rooms © FCS workshop - Frédéric Casanova Scenographer
ExpériMAMCS !
Inside the Mind of a Spellbinder
A teeming imagination, eclectic references, a thirst for sensation: how are we to picture that
improbable "image machine", Huysmans' brain, and get inside the head of a compulsive
hoarder of objects, words and impressions?
The immersive space designed by our educational and cultural staff to introduce or prolong the
exhibition seeks to conjure up the multiple sources of the author's inspiration and his many
obsessions. Through a series of contrasting sensory experiences, visitors young and old will be
able to to see, feel, touch or hear "fragments" of Huysmans' world.
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3. Joris-Karl Huysmans: Chronology
1848: Charles Marie Georges Huysmans born on 5 February at 11 rue Suger in Paris. His father,
Victor Godfried Jan Huijsmans, was an engraver and miniaturist from a family of Dutch artists
and his mother, Malvina Badin, a schoolmistress.
1856: Godfried Huysmans dies on June 24. In the following year Malvina marries a
businessman name Jules Og and settles with her children at 11 rue de Sèvres.
1866: Having taken a law degree, he enters the French Ministry of the Interior as a 6th grade
clerk. He is to spend his entire career here.
1867: Publication of his first article "Contemporary Landscape Artists" in La Revue Mensuelle,
following his visit to the Exposition Universelle.
1870: Enlisted in the Garde Mobile de la Seine during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870.
Afterwards evacuated with dysentery from the military camp at Châlons-sur-Marne.
1874: Le Drageoir à Épices published at the author's expense, under the pen name Joris-Karl
Huysmans, and re-published in the following year as Le Drageoir aux Épices.
1875: Beginning of his activity as an art critic.
1876: First of a series of articles on the Paris Salons, which he continued to write almost every
year until 1887.
1876 : Huysmans inherits his mother's bookbindery on her death.
Huysmans' first novel, Marthe, The Story of a Street Girl, links him with Zola's Naturalist
movement.
1879: Publication of his second novel, Les Sœurs Vatard, and his article on the Salon of 1879.
1880: Publication of the short story "Rucksack" in Soirées de Médan and of a collection of prose
poems, Parisian Sketches, in an edition illustrated by Forain and Raffaelli.
1881: Huysmans goes into convalescence in a house in Fontenay-aux Roses which will serve as
a model for Des Esseintes' home in À Rebours.
1883: L’Art Moderne brings together articles from Huysmans' art criticism published in the press
between 1879 and 1882.
1884: With the novel À Rebours, Huysmans distances himself from Naturalism, opening the way
to Decadentism.
1888: Stay in Germany, with his friend Arij Prins, where he discovers Grünewald's Crucifixion.
1891: The novel Là-Bas is published in serial form in L’Écho de Paris. Durtal, the hero, explores
the circles of late-century Parisian occultism.
1892: On the advice of Abbé Mugnier, first retreat with the Trappist monks of Notre-Dame
d’Igny in the Marne.
1893: Second retreat at Notre-Dame d'Igny.
Huysmans appointed Chevalier de la Légion of d'Honneur.
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1895: Huysmans' companion Anna Meunier dies after a long illness, possibly syphilis.
En Route marks Huysmans' conversion to Catholicism.
1898: After thirty years at the Ministry of the Interior, Huysmans retires from his post as
honorary office manager.
Publication of the second part of the Catholic trilogy, La Cathédrale, threatened with being
placed on the Church's index of forbidden books.
1899: Huysmans settles in Ligugé.
1900: "Dressing" ceremony as an Oblate.
Huysmans becomes the first president of the newly created Goncourt Academy.
1901: Huysmans returns to settle in Paris following the exile of the Ligugé monks to Belgium.
1903: Stays in Lourdes and then in Germany, where he discovers Strasbourg and Grünewald's
Isenheim altarpiece at the museum in Colmar.
1904: Publication of the art chronicles Trois Primitifs.
1906: Publication of the monograph Les Foules de Lourdes.
1907: Huysmans dies from cancer of the jaw on May 12, at 31 rue Saint-Placide. A large crowd
follows the funeral procession to the Montparnasse cemetery where the writer is buried.
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4. Select Bibliography
Main Works
• Le Drageoir à épices, 1874
• Marthe, histoire d’une fille, 1876
• Les Sœurs Vatard, 1879
• Sac au dos, 1880
• Croquis parisiens, 1880
• En ménage, 1881
• À vau-l’eau, 1882
• L’Art moderne, 1883
• À rebours, 1884
• En rade, 1887
• Un dilemme, 1887
• La Retraite de monsieur Bougran, 1964
• Certains, 1889
• Là-bas, 1891
• En route, 1895
• La Cathédrale, 1898
• La Bièvre et Saint-Séverin, 1898
• Sainte Lydwine de Schiedam, 1901
• De tout, 1901
• L'Oblat, 1903
• Trois Primitifs, 1905
• Les Foules de Lourdes, 1906
• Trois Églises et Trois Primitifs (posthume), 1908
Œuvres Complètes de J.-K. Huysmans, edition established by Charles Grolleau, under the
supervision of Lucien Descaves, Paris, Crès, 1928-1934, 23 vol.
Available in bookshops
- "Bibliothèque de la Pléiade" series (Gallimard) : Marthe, Les Sœurs Vatard, Sac au Dos, En
Ménage, A Vau-l’Eau, À Rebours, Un Dilemme, En Rade, Là-Bas, En Route.
- "Folio" Series (Gallimard) : À Rebours, En Rade, Là-Bas, En Route, La Cathédrale
- "GF" series (Flammarion) : À Rebours, Là-Bas, Nouvelles, Les Soirées de Médan, Écrits sur
l'Art
- "Poésie" Series (Gallimard) Le Drageoir aux Épices, followed by Croquis Parisiens
Summary Bibliography
BALDICK, Robert, La Vie de Joris-Karl Huysmans, orig. angl., 1955, Marcel Thomas (trad.), Paris,
Denoël, 1958
BONNET, Gille, L’Écriture comique de J.-K. Huysmans, Paris, Champion, 2003
BORIE, Jean, Huysmans, le Diable, le célibataire et Dieu, Paris, Grasset, 1991
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COGNY, Pierre, J.-K. Huysmans à la recherche de l’unité, Paris, Nizet, 1953
HUYSMANS, Joris-Karl, Romans, Pierre Brunel (dir.), Paris, Laffont, 2005, coll. « Bouquins »
HUYSMANS, Joris-Karl, Romans et nouvelles, André Guyaux et Pierre Jourde (dir.), Paris,
Gallimard, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 2019
HUYSMANS, Joris-Karl, À Rebours, Stéphane Guégan et André Guyaux (préface), Paris, Gallimard
/ Musée d’Orsay, 2019
HUYSMANS, Joris-Karl, Écrits sur l'art : 1867-1905, Patrice Locmant (dir.), Paris, Bartillat, 2006
HUYSMANS, Joris-Karl, Les Grünewald du musée de Colmar : des primitifs au retable
d'Issenheim, éd. critique par Pierre Brunel, André Guyaux et Christian Heck, Paris, Hermann,
1988
HUYSMANS, Joris-Karl, Lettres inédites à Zola, p. p. Pierre Lambert, Paris, Droz, 1953
HUYSMANS, Joris-Karls, Lettres inédites à Edmond de Goncourt, p. p. Pierre Lambert, Paris,
Nizet, 1956
HUYSMANS, Joris-Karl, Lettres à Théodore Hannon, p. p. Pierre Cogny et Christian Berg, Saint-
Cyr-sur-Loire, Christian Pirot, 1985
HUYSMANS, Joris-Karl, Lettres inédites à Arij Prins, 1885-1907, p. p. Louis Gillet, Paris, Droz,
1977
Huysmans : Une esthétique de la décadence, André Guyaux, Christian Heck et Robert Kopp (dir.),
Paris, Champion, 1887
Huysmans - Moreau. Féériques visions, Paris, Musée Gustave Moreau - Société J.-K. Huysmans,
2007
MILLET-GERARD, Dominique, Le Tigre et le chat. Vingt études sur Léon Bloy et J.-K. Huysmans,
Paris, Classiques Garnier, 2017.
SEILLAN, Jean-Marie, Huysmans : politique et religion, Paris, Classiques Garnier, 2009
ZAYED (Fernande), Huysmans peintre de son époque, Paris, Nizet, 1973.
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5. Huysmans' Writings: Extracts
Les Sœurs Vatard (1879)
« […] il y avait des statues coloriées de Vierges, des Madones sérieuses et bonnes à mettre en
niche, des Christs, grandeur nature, avec du lilas sur le ventre et du carmin aux doigts, des Jésus
bénisseurs, frisottés et blonds, les bras en avant, accueillant et bien vêtus, puis sur le rayon du
bas, des Saints-Sacrements, des patènes, des ciboires resplendissaient avec leurs dorures et
leurs mosaïques ; des veilleuses étranges, des cœurs en verre rouge, montés sur bronze, des lys
aux pistils et aux tiges de cuivre, des vases avec des J. M. entrelacés et des bouquets de roses,
en papier blanc, s’empilaient sur une cloison encadrant un petit Rédempteur, de cire rose, qui
batifolait sur de la paille, serré comme un joujou de vieille femme, sous un globe de verre. »
« Il aurait voulu éteindre une femme accoutrée en saltimbanque riche, l’hiver, par un ciel gris et
jaune, un ciel qui va laisser tomber sa neige, dans une chambre tendue d’étoffes du Japon,
pendant qu’un famélique quelconque viderait un orgue de Barbarie des valses attristantes dont
son ventre est plein. »
À Vau-l’eau (1882)
« C’étaient chez lui des masses de boîtes, de topettes, de fioles, une pharmacie en chambre,
contenant tous les citrates, les phosphates, les proto-carbonates, les lactates, les sulfates de
protoxyde, les iodures et le proto-iodures de fer, les liqueurs de Pearson, les solutions de
Devergie, les granules de Dioscoride, les pilules d’arséniate de soude et d’arséniate d’or, les vins
de gentiane et de quinium, de coca et de colombo ! »
« [...] il comprit l’inutilité des changements de routes, la stérilité des élans et des efforts ; il faut
se laisser aller à vau-l’eau ; Schopenhauer a raison, se dit-il, « la vie de l’homme oscille comme
un pendule entre la douleur et l’ennui ». Aussi, n’est-ce point la peine de tenter d’accélérer ou
de retarder la marche du balancier ; il n’y a qu’à se croiser les bras et à tâcher de dormir. »
L’Art Moderne (1883)
À propos de La Naissance de Vénus de William Bouguereau :
« De concert avec M. Cabanel, il [Bouguereau] a inventé la peinture gazeuse, la pièce soufflée.
Ce n’est même plus de la porcelaine, c’est du léché flasque ; c’est je ne sais quoi, quelque chose
comme de la chair molle de poulpe. La Naissance de Vénus, étalée sur la cimaise d’une salle,
est une pauvreté qui n’a pas de nom. La composition est celle de tout le monde. Une femme
nue sur une coquille, au centre. Tout autour d’autres femmes s’ébattant dans des poses
connues. Les têtes sont banales, ce sont ces sydonies qu’on voit tourner dans la devanture des
coiffeurs ; mais ce qui est plus affligeant encore, ce sont les bustes et les jambes. Prenez la
Vénus de la tête aux pieds, c’est une baudruche mal gonflée. Ni muscles, ni nerfs, ni sang. Les
genoux godent, manquent d’attaches; c’est par un miracle d’équilibre que cette malheureuse
tient debout. Un coup d’épingle dans ce torse et le tout tomberait. La couleur est vile, et vil est le
dessin. C’est exécuté comme pour des chromos de boîtes à dragées; la main a marché seule,
faisant l’ondulation du corps machinalement. C’est à hurler de rage quand on songe que ce
peintre qui, dans la hiérarchie du médiocre, est maître, est chef d’école, et que cette école, si
l’on n’y prend garde, deviendra tout simplement la négation la plus absolue de l’art ! »
À propos de Degas :
« Ici, point de chairs crémeuses ou lisses, point d’épidermes en baudruche et de moire, mais de
la vraie chair poudrée de veloutine, de la chair maquillée de théâtre et d’alcôve, telle qu’elle est
avec son grenu éraillé, vue de près, et son maladif éclat, vue de loin. M. Degas est passé maître
dans l’art de rendre ce que j’appellerais volontiers la carnation civilisée. Il est passé maître
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encore dans l’art de saisir la femme, de la représenter avec ses jolis mouvements et ses grâces
d’attitude, à quelque classe de la société qu’elle appartienne. »
À Rebours (1884)
« Déjà il rêvait d’une thébaïde raffinée, à un désert confortable, à une arche immobile et tiède
où il se réfugierait loin de l’incessant déluge de la sottise humaine. »
« Dans la salle à manger tendue de noir, ouverte sur le jardin de sa maison subitement
transformée, montrant ses allées poudrées de charbon, son petit bassin maintenant bordé
d’une margelle de basalte et rempli d’encre et ses massifs tout disposés de cyprès et de pins, le
dîner avait été apporté sur une nappe noire, garnie de corbeilles de violettes et de scabieuses,
éclairée par des candélabres où brûlaient des flammes vertes et, par des chandeliers où
flambaient des cierges. »
« Ce qu’il voulait, c’étaient des couleurs dont l’expression s’affirmât aux lumières factices des
lampes ; peu lui importait même qu’elles fussent insipides ou rêches, car il ne vivait guère que
la nuit, pensant qu’on était mieux chez soi, plus seul, et que l’esprit ne s’excitait et ne crépitait
réellement qu’au contact voisin de l’ombre. »
« Positivement, il souffrait de la vue de certaines physionomies, considérait presque comme des
insultes les mines paternes ou rêches de quelques visages, se sentait des envies de souffleter
ce monsieur qui flânait, en fermant ses paupières d’un air docte, cet autre qui paraissait agiter
un monde de pensées, tout en dévorant, les sourcils contractés, les tartines et les faits divers
d’un journal. »
« Ces dessins [à propos d’Odilon Redon] étaient en-dehors de tout ; ils sautaient, pour la plupart,
par-dessus les bornes de la peinture, innovaient un fantastique très spécial, un fantastique de
maladie et de délire. »
« Tout n’est que syphilis, songea des Esseintes. »
« Il était, depuis des années, habile dans la science du flair ; il pensait que l’odorat pouvait
éprouver des jouissances égales à celles de l’ouïe et de la vue, chaque sens étant susceptible,
par suite d’une disposition naturelle et d’une érudite culture, de percevoir des impressions
nouvelles, de les décupler, de les coordonner, d’en composer ce tout qui constitue une œuvre. »
En Rade (1887)
Chapitre V (rêve du voyage sur la Lune) :
« C’était au-delà de toutes limites, dans une suite indéfinie de l’œil, un immense désert de plâtre
sec, un Sahara de lait de chaux figé, dans le centre duquel se dressait un mont circulaire,
gigantesque, aux flancs raboteux, troués comme des éponges, micacés de points étincelants
comme des points de sucre, à la crête de neige dure, évidée en forme de coupe. »
Là-Bas (1891)
« Or, du mysticisme exalté au Satanisme exaspéré, il n’y a qu’un pas. Dans l’au-delà, tout se
touche. »
« Les conversations qui ne traitent pas de religion ou d’art sont si basses et si vaines ! »
En route (1895)
« Je suis hanté par le Catholicisme, grisé par son atmosphère d’encens et de cire, je rôde autour
de lui, touché jusqu’aux larmes par ses prières, pressuré jusqu’aux moelles par ses psalmodies
et par ses chants. Je suis bien dégoûté de ma vie, bien las de moi, mais de là à mener une autre
existence il y a loin ! Et puis… et puis… si je suis perturbé dans les chapelles, je redeviens inému
et sec, dès que j’en sors. Au fond, se dit-il, en se levant et en suivant les quelques personnes qui
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se dirigeaient, rabattues par le suisse vers une porte, au fond, j’ai le cœur racorni et fumé par
les noces, je ne suis bon à rien. »
La Cathédrale (1898)
« En somme, avec la teinte de ses pierres et de ses vitres Notre-Dame de Chartres était une
blonde aux yeux bleus. »
« Il n’y a point que les Trappes, répliqua l’abbé. Devenez père ou oblat bénédictin, moine noir.
Leur règle doit être douce ; vous vivrez dans un monde de savants et d’écrivains, que pouvez-
vous désirer de plus ? »
Les Foules de Lourdes (1906)
« Pour en revenir à Lourdes même, c'est, je le répète, un endroit à la fois répulsif et divin, mais il
sied de l'expérimenter en personne. »
Trois Églises et Trois Primitifs (1908)
« Là, dans l’ancien couvent des Unterlinden, il surgit, dès qu’on entre, farouche, et il vous
abasourdit aussitôt avec l’effroyable cauchemar d’un Calvaire. C’est comme le typhon d’un art
déchaîné qui passe et vous emporte, et il faut quelques minutes pour se reprendre, pour
surmonter l’impression de lamentable horreur que suscite ce Christ énorme en croix, dressé
dans la nef de ce musée installé dans la vieille église désaffectée du cloître. »
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6. List of Lenders
Public Collections
• Musée d'Orsay, Paris
• Musée du Louvre, Paris
• Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris – Petit Palais, Paris
• Musées des Arts Décoratifs, Paris
• Musée National Gustave Moreau, Paris
• Musée des arts et métiers – Conservatoire national des arts et métiers, Paris
• Bibliothèque nationale de France – Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, Paris
• Bibliothèque littéraire Jacques Doucet, Paris
• Bibliothèque interuniversitaire de Santé– Université Paris-Descartes, Paris
• Institut national d'histoire de l'art, Paris
• Musée de l'Histoire de la Médecine, Paris
• Musée des moulages de Saint-Louis, Paris
• Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain de Strasbourg
• Musée des Beaux-Arts, Strasbourg
• Musée des Arts décoratifs, Strasbourg
• Musée Zoologique, Strasbourg
• Musée Alsacien, Strasbourg
• Musée de l’Œuvre Notre-Dame, Strasbourg
• Fondation de l’Œuvre Notre-Dame, Strasbourg
• Jardin des sciences - Université de Strasbourg
• Musée de minéralogie - Jardin des sciences - Université de Strasbourg
• Jardin botanique de l'Université de Strasbourg - Faculté des Sciences de la Vie
• Bibliothèque des musées de la Ville de Strasbourg
• Bibliothèque nationale et universitaire de Strasbourg
• Musée Unterlinden, Colmar
• Musée de l'Impression sur Étoffes de Mulhouse
• Musée du Papier Peint de Rixheim
• Jardin d'Hiver - Musée de la Faïence de Sarreguemines
• Musée des Civilisations de l'Europe et de la Méditerranée, Marseille
• Musée des Beaux-Arts, Bordeaux
• Musée des Beaux-Arts, Nantes
• Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rouen
• Musée des Châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon
• Le musée d’art moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Luxembourg
Private Collections
• LUBIN Perfumes
• Lionel van der Gucht Collection
• Bueil & Ract-Madoux Private Collection
• Florence Valdes-Forain Private Collection
• Léa Barbazanges Artist's Collection
• Rémi de Raphaélis Private Collection
Together with those of collectors wishing to remain anonymous
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7. Publications
CATALOGUE
Joris-Karl Huysmans. De Degas à Grünewald
Published under the direction of Stéphane
Guégan and André Guyaux
Co-publication Gallimard / Musée d'Orsay
2019
228 pages
ISBN : 9782072865602
€ 35.00 ATI
Huysmans (1848-1907), plutôt féru de Frans Hals et Rembrandt jusque-là, a avoué combien fut
déterminante la découverte de Degas lors de l'exposition impressionniste de 1876, la deuxième
du genre. L'artiste de la «commotion» jouira d'un statut particulier dans la critique d'art de
l'écrivain, qui admet d'emblée la possibilité d'une double modernité : celle des peintres de la vie
moderne, et celle des explorateurs du rêve. Son désir d'échapper aux logiques de chapelle aura
toutefois porté tort à Huysmans, dont le massif critique souffre encore d'une méconnaissance
relative. Cet ouvrage entend montrer que ce supposé fils de Zola agit davantage, et très tôt, en
héritier de Baudelaire, sa véritable autorité, et Gautier, très souvent cité, comme si le romancier
de Marthe s'était dès le départ doublé de celui d'À rebours. Le lecteur est ainsi invité à
reprendre pied dans un moment particulier de l'art européen et de la sensibilité moderne, à la
croisée de la poussée naturaliste des années 1870, du décadentisme des années 1880-1890 et
du «retour» aux Primitifs sur fond de renaissance catholique. Il est peu de grands écrivains qui
aient été aussi impliqués que lui dans ce vaste mouvement d'époque.
EXTRAITS
Huysmans et l’art officiel : un critique d’opposition (Aude Jeannerod)
Aux yeux de Huysmans, l’État comme l’Académie exercent un pouvoir abusif, au détriment de la
liberté individuelle de l’artiste et de l’autonomie du champ artistique. Ses conceptions
libertaires réclament non seulement l’abolition des institutions, mais aussi que soit retirée à
l’administration la prérogative de s’occuper des beaux-arts. En cela, il s’inscrit en faux contre la
tradition de protection des arts héritée de l’Ancien Régime et contre l’idéologie républicaine qui
fait de l’enseignement et de la promotion de l’art une mission de service public.
Le temps de Redon, Degas, Moreau et Rops (André Guyaux)
L’art, pour Joris-Karl Huysmans, fut longtemps, et prioritairement, un engagement en faveur des
peintres qui se faisaient appeler les « Indépendants » parce que, refusés par les jurys des Salons
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officiels, ils exposaient dans d’autres salles. Lorsqu’il publie son premier « Salon », en mai 1876,
il est en train d’achever son premier roman, Marthe, qui paraîtra en octobre à Bruxelles. C’est le
moment où il se rapproche d’Émile Zola […]. Il cherche dans la peinture ce qu’il cherche dans la
littérature : le vivant, le vrai, un art qui ne ment pas, qui s’éloigne des clichés académiques, un
art où il retrouve la vie, sa vie – la vie libre et même quelque peu débauchée qu’il mène à Paris,
la vie des cafés et des bouges, des coulisses de théâtre et des repaires de prostituées.
Huysmans, Moreau et Salomé (Mireille Dottin-Orsini et Daniel Grojnowski)
L’intérêt que Huysmans porte à Moreau fut précoce. Dès ses premiers écrits, à l’occasion de
recension des Poésies de Catulle Mendès, il évoque son trouble devant L’Apparition, parlant
d’ »obscurité mythique », d’ »idéalité bizarre », de « chocs de couleurs imprévues ». Par la suite,
tout en défendant les impressionnistes, il confirme la fascination qu’exercent sur lui les
tableaux et aquarelles que Moreau expose aux Salons, à l’Exposition universelle et à la galerie
Goupil.
Du culte de l’art à l’art du culte (Stéphane Guégan)
La formule est tentante, mais trompeuse. Car elle suppose deux formes de désintéressement
antithétiques et schématise une trajectoire qui fut moins clivée. Le présent catalogue entend
rappeler que l’écrivain naturaliste, le chantre ironique de la décadence et le converti tardif,
ardent avocat des Primitifs et du spirituel dans l’art, sont inséparables… Degas et Grünewald,
adulés à rebours de l’ordre chronologique, ne fixent pas les bornes d’un repli régressif, ils
infirment, au contraire, l’antimodernité où notre époque aime à reléguer l’auteur de L’Art
moderne, de Certains et de La Cathédrale. Le Retable d’Issenheim, par la réévaluation qu’en
propose le dernier Huysmans en 1904, connaît une nouvelle naissance qui le fait pleinement
participer des attentes de la fin du XIXe siècle, notamment des besoins d’un naturalisme
spiritualiste.
Huysmans ou l’art de l’inventaire (Estelle Pietrzyk)
Entre la chlorose envisagée non plus comme forme de dégénérescence mais comme nuance de
blanc et l’intense pourpre de Cassius – « l’or pourpre » - la gamme lexicale brassée par
Huysmans pour décrire la carnation dépasse le nuancier le mieux fourni des marchands de
couleurs pour rejoindre la palette des plus subtils peintres de la chair. L’éventail des teintes,
pour celui qui fut « peut-être le plus grand coloriste de la langue française » semble sans limite
tant le moindre ton intermédiaire peut encore être transformé en une infime nouvelle variation.
VISITORS' GUIDE
L’Œil de Huysmans. Manet, Degas, Moreau
2020
24 pages
Published free of charge
With the support of the patronage circle of
the French Heritage Foundation, this guide
provides exhibition visitors with a step-by-
step commentary.
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9. Partners
• The exhibition has been produced in partnership with Musées d’Orsay et de l’Orangerie,
Paris
With the exceptional assistance of
Bibliothèque Nationale de France
and Strasbourg National and University Library
• With the exceptional support of Eurométropole de Strasbourg
• And the support of:
-- The Friends of Strasbourg Modern and Contemporary Art Museum, AMAMCS
-- LUBIN
-- The "MecenAlsace" patronage circle, set up by the French Heritage Foundation
(production of the visitors' guide)
-- Librairie Kléber, Strasbourg
-- Les Films du Spectre
• Media Partner
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10. Visitor Information
Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain (MAMCS)
1 place Hans-Jean-Arp, Strasbourg
tel. +33 (0)3 68 98 50 00
Opening Times: every day - except Monday - 10 am to 6 pm (8 pm Friday, Saturday, Sunday)
Closed on 1st January, Good Friday, 1st May, 1st and 11th November and 25th December.
Group Bookings
Special times are reserved for group visits arranged by the museums educational service or
accompanied by guides from the Strasbourg Tourist Office.
Advanced booking is required for group visits of more than 10 people,
tel. 03 68 98 51 54, Monday to Friday from 8:30 am to 12:30 pm (school holiday period: 9
am to 12 noon).
Tickets MAMCS € 7 (reduced: € 3.50 )
Admission free
- visitors under age 18
- Carte Culture card holders
- Atout Voir card holders
- Museums Pass Musées card holders
- Édu’Pass card holders
- visitors with disabilities
- students of art, history of art and architecture
- persons seeking employment
- recipients of social assistance
- badge-holding employees of Eurométropole de Strasbourg
Admission free of charge, all visitors: 1st Sunday in the month.
1 Day Pass
€ 12 (reduced: € 7). Access to all of Strasbourg's Municipal Museums and their
temporary exhibitions.
3 Day Pass
€ 18 (reduced: € 12). Access to all of Strasbourg's Municipal Museums and their
temporary exhibitions.
Museums Pass Musées
1 year - 320 museums : more information at www.museumspass.com
By setting up sanitary measures to ensure your safety and that of our staff, we are able
to offer you continuing comfort and quality of reception. More information on visitor reception
conditions at: musees.strasbourg.eu
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