Page 24 - Studio International - November 1967

song, 'So long, Mommie, I'm off to shoot a Commie!' the parts are subordinated to the whole; the second
My own concern, of course, is with contemporary (decadence) is beautiful because the whole is subordi-
American art, which disports itself against the implaus- nated to the parts.' If we take Ellis to mean, in this
ible backcloth just mentioned. But perhaps it would be pretty simplification, the conceptual and psychological
more accurate to say that it has, in great measure, woven parts, as well as the formal ones, then the statement is a
that backcloth itself, that it is somewhat responsible for it, far reaching one. From it, then, would follow the in-
or at least, the look of it. I would hesitate to claim, how- stability, the nervousness, the eclecticism and hybrid
ever, that it should take credit for it. Artists often have multiplication of styles, the diffusion rather than com-
given the earliest signal of an age's tempo, but rarely has pression of energies, the exaggeration and artifice, the
an age so reciprocated, as ours, by relentlessly miming its introversion, the obliqueness, and the involvement with
art. As a result, it would seem almost a matter of some the creative act itself, or referents thereto, which are
urgency to investigate the concept and meanings of the surely well known characterological features of present
word 'decadence'. Of great interest, for instance, is the art. Even the most casual spectator of the present scene
possibility of squaring away the paradox of the vitality knows that he is dealing with the anxiety, not of transi-
which many of us (myself included) see in visual art tion, but of disequilibrium. As for Ellis himself, it is
today, as it is fused with a decadent mood whose pe- significant that he articulates a theory of a decadent style
jorative connotations do not easily melt away. (Despite as deriving existence only from contrast with its opposite;
the fact that all modern ages tend to consider themselves his is a dialectical conception without moral overtones.
decadent, we know that we are.) Considerably more systematic has been the English
That some attention still has to be paid to the subject is writer, C. M. Joad. In his book on the subject, published
testified by the fact that, even on a general level, there is no in 1947, decadent ages are seen as enlightened, sceptical,
heading under the title 'decadence', or 'decadent styles', empirical, and tending towards affluence. They are
in the Encyclopedia of World Art. This despite the fact that often, he says, comparatively pleasant times in which to
Mannerism, our prime example, and the recurrence of live, and their relativism and resignation to uncertainty
styles having an affinity with it, are provocative pheno-
mena in the history of art.
The term originally seems to have come into art critical
parlance (if one leaves out the earlier great precedent of
Baudelaire) during the 1890s, to describe the circle
around Stephane Mallarmé. With little injustice, it was
applicable to Huysmans and Mirabeau in literature,
Redon in art, and Debussy in music. Here, the sense of
the term meant that the work in question was involved
with extremely refined, fantastically delicate sensations,
even with the abnormal, artificial and neurasthenic, and
had a lowering, zest-draining effect upon the conscious-
ness of its audience. Jules Romains, for instance, has
many ambivalent comments on this when he discusses the
contrasting virtues of Debussy and Richard Strauss.
For the sake at least of the record, the official definition
of the word decadence must be invoked. Dictionaries
usually define it as referring to deterioration and decline
as from an earlier condition of vitality or excellence.
Remy de Gourmont thought that the idea of decadence
is merely the idea of natural death. It is a rather doleful
biological metaphor, especially hard to reconcile with
the art of Debussy and Mallarmé, who were outstanding
revolutionary innovators in their fields. But more interest-
ing than the dictionaries, have been the occasional com-
ments from psychiatrists and philosophers.
One of the most negative judgements uttered on deca-
dence, for instance, was from an aesthete who dabbled in
criminal psychiatry, Max Nordau. In his astonishing
book, Degeneration, of 1895, he wrote : 'Degenerates are
not always criminals, prostitutes, anarchists, and pro-
nounced lunatics, they are often authors and artists.'
(Interestingly enough, Nordau later went on to become
an ardent and prominent Zionist.) A much less hysteric-al
concept of decadence was put forth by Havelock Ellis:
`Technically,' he remarks, 'a decadent style is only such
in relation to a classic style. It is simply a further develop-
ment of a classic style . . . The first is beautiful because