Monica Oprescu

Art for art’s sake and artificiality at Mateiu Caragiale, Oscar Wilde and Joris-Karl Huysmans



The cult of artificiality is specific to Decadent literature, appearing as a rejection to the Romantic cult of nature. It marks an important change in fin-de-siècle sensibility, not only in art, but also in real life (see dandyism). A.E.Carter considers this fusion between artificial and modern one of the “identifying masks of decadence”.

The accent is on imagination, the cult of sensations, searching for an unnatural beauty. Artificial spaces, filled with flowers, precious stones, beautiful and rare books, decadent works are a necessary luxury for Des Esseintes, Dorian Gray, Aubrey de Vere, Paşadia and Pantazi, characters of A rebours, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Remember and Craii de Curtea-Veche. Artificiality, fast and somptuosity are the key elements of these novels, marks of decadent style.