Aboli Bibelot?

The Influence of the Decorative Arts on Stphane Mallarm and Gustave

Moreau
Author(s): Rae Beth Gordon
Source: Art Journal, Vol. 45, No. 2, Symbolist Art and Literature (Summer, 1985), pp. 105-112
Published by: College Art Association
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Aboli
of the
Bibelot? The Influence
Decorative
Arts
on
Ste phane
Mallarmeand
Gusta ve Moreau

By Rae Beth Gordon

motifs and materials-

atic of presence and absence. The deco-

Decorative
images of precious gems, embroi- rative arts will emerge here as the pinion

dered silks, lace, appliques of arabesques, heavily ornamented frames,

and so forth-are omnipresent in the
work of Gustave Moreau and St6phane
Mallarm6. The decorative motifs, moreover, bear an intimate connection with
the ephemeral, suggestive design that
Mallarm6 calls "the melody or song
under the text ... whose motif is laid on
[in applique] in invisible ornament
[jewel] and tail-piece." Although the
importanceof music and musicalisation
has been much discussed in relation to
Symbolism, the role of the decorative
arts has gone begging. But the music of
the text is itself characterized by Mallarm6 in decorative terms in the above
quotation. That the decorative motif of
the textual "song" is allied with the very
essence of the Symbolist project becomes clear when we read the preceding
lines of this fragment: "Indefectibly the
white [of the page] returns .... Virginity which in solitary fashion, before the
crystal clarity of an adequate gaze, itself
has fractured into fragments of candor
... nuptial proofs of the Idea."' This
study attempts to make visible the invisible decorative motifs underlying the
text and to trace their intimate connection with the palpable, sensual ornaments that at first glance seem merely to
furnish the evocation of the Idea with
a decor.
A second considerationof this study is
the relevance of late-nineteenth-century
theories of decorative composition to the
pictorial and poetic architecture examined here. Of particular interest are
formulations regarding the relation of
ornament to empty space. In the work of
Mallarm6 and Moreau such relations
become the embodiment of the problem-

of poetic and pictorial composition, and

the decorative phenomenon of trompe
l'oeil will be recognized as a powerful
instrument for staging the play of pressence and absence, of the concrete and
the ideal in the Symbol, allowing the
reader-viewerto visualize the metaphysical in a dynamic moment of its operations.

n order to understandthe thrust of

the decorative arts for Moreau and

Mallarm6 one must first situate this
branch of artistic endeavor in the cultural context of the last quarter of the
nineteenth century. Certainly, many felt
the excitement generated by the fusion
of art and industry, "an attempt [that
is] truly that of the entire modern age,"
as Mallarm6 put it in 1871 in his third
letter on the London Exposition.2 But
the position enjoyed by the decorative
arts was, nonetheless, far from prestigious, and fell considerably below that
of the Beaux-Arts. "France, the first
nation to recognize the necessity of the
unity of art in 1851 [year of the first
Universal Exposition in London], is
today [1880] the most recalcitrant!"
remonstrated the Marquis Philippe de
Chennevibres,founder of the Revue des
Arts DIcoratifs' and director of BeauxArts.
The state of the decorative arts in
1872 was described by Mallarmmin the
last of his four articles on the London
Expositions.
[W]e are in a position to state, in a
nearly categorical manner, this
axiom: that all invention having
ceased in the decorative arts at the
end of the last century, the critical

role of our century is to collect the

most common and the most
curious forms born of the Fantasy
of each people and each period.4
Two ideas from Mallarm6's article
can be seen to permeate the work of
Gustave Moreau: the assemblage of
material of "every" race and epoch, and
the quality of fantasy. For Moreau, the
forms fantasy takes are intimately tied
to mystery, to the chimera of the passions as well as to the "unexplored
regions of dream and mystery."' He
describes Les Chimbres (Fig. 1): "This
isle of fantastic dreams contains all
forms of passion, fantasy, caprice found
in woman, woman in her originary
essence, the unconscious being, delirious
with the unknown and with mystery."'6
That this canvas also explores the juxtaposition of extremely intricate areas,
which have the appearance of a Diirer
engraving, with pockets of seemingly
empty space will prove pertinent to the
discussion that follows.
A surcharge of ornamental detail,
characteristic of the decorative arts of
the 1880s and 1890s, is also prevalent in
Moreau. The efforts of the eye to take in
a superabundance of detail create an
hypnotic effect that propels the viewer
into a state more propitiousto the reception of the Idea. Here, in fact, lies
Moreau's visual equivalent to Mallarm6's incantatory magic.
What defines modernity for Mallarm6 in the realm of the decorative
arts? In the 1872 letter on the London
Exposition, he draws attention to ceramics "doubly inspired by the archaic and
the exotic," which bear, nonetheless,
"an undefinablestamp that one can only
call modern."7He speaks of ivory celadons with leaves and plumage of a richSummer 1985

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105

W.4Y
Al

::_
IF.::::
j
46--

Ilk 49~

ii

Wt

Fig. 1 Moreau, Les Chimkres, 1880 (unfinished), oil on canvas, 23.7 x 204 cm.
Paris, Mus6e Gustave Moreau.
ness equal to precious stones; of vases
where the turquoise enameling is so
intense as to resemble enamel on copper;
of opalescent figurines that turn from
gray or green to rose, "like flowers at
day's end." In each decorative object,
Mallarm6 notes the brilliance of the
material and its ability, thanks to the
technical skill of the artisan,8to dazzle.
It is the ingenuity in achieving a luminous trompe l'oeil that Mallarm6 considers "modern":he qualifies the effects
of luminosity in the objects described in
this passage as "three special inventions." Indeed, the question of luminosity will be all-importantin analyzing the
poetry and the paintings. Transparency,
shimmering light, dazzling brilliance:
these are effects mastered by Moreau
and Mallarm6--and their study of the
decorative arts introduced them to a
variety of inventive techniques used to
capture luminosity.

M. Gustave Moreau is an extraordinary, unique artist. Lost in

ecstasy, he sees fairylike visions
cast their splendiferous light....
The methods he employs to make
these dreams visible appear to be
borrowed from techniques of old
German engraving, from ceramics
and jewelery; there's a bit of
everything in his work, mosaic,
enamel on black ground, lacemaking, the patient embroidery of
bygone ages, and also manuscript
illumination and the barbaric
of the ancient
watercolors
Orient.9

Huysmans, of course, knew that Moreau

had spent ten years in Italy where he
tirelessly "copied archaic vases, mosaics
and Byzantine enameling."'0
The source of Moreau's strikingly
original approach to the relation of figure and ground can be located in his
n the Salon Officielof 1880, J.-K. study of, and fascination with enamels.
Huysmans very clearly perceived In particular, the enamels of medieval
Moreau's intimate ties with decora- Limoges, in which the enamel is
reserved for ornamentation and rarely
tive art:
106

covers the figure, seem to have had a

strong influence on him. Certain of
Moreau's paintings exhibit the same
tendency to highlight the central figure
by leaving it essentially unworked in
contrast to the surrounding areas. In
Galathe (Fig. 2), the figure is sunk into
an incrustation of thickly painted shells,
minerals, and flora, making it function
like a jewel--or a hole-in the pictorial
space. In Moreau's work, heavily ornamented ground, rather than fulfilling
the conventional late-nineteenthcentury function of ground as empty
space,1 rivals the central figures in size
and interest. The hard, black line that
traces the contour of the central figure-in, for example, Galatee, Helen
(1880; Mus6e G. Moreau), or The Tattooed Salomb (see Fig. 4)-may also be
compared to the enameling technique
of cloisonne.
Enameling, like jewel-cutting or goldworking, is essentially founded on luminosity. The medieval metaphysics of
light, made manifest in Gothic stainedglass widows and paintings on gold
ground, was summarized by the thirteenth-century philosopher Vitellio:
"Light, the first visible thing, is the
source of beauty.""2Light, in Moreau's
paintings, emanates first from the
superabundance of jewels that stud
swords, bracelets, rings, and embroidered robes. But the mythological and
legendary figures who people these canvases carry a light source within them;
the inner glow of figures like Hercules,
Orpheus, or Salome-so often echoed
(as it is in Hercules and the Hydra of
Lerna and Orpheus at Eurydice's
Grave) by the moribundsun, which hovers in the background-is like a last
vestige, a Gbtterdiimmerung, of the
heroic moment.
But aren't these dying suns an
emblem, too, for the parti pris of Gustave Moreau, practitioner of the most
moribund genre of all, mythological
painting? A parallel to this genre of
painting lies in Moreau's love for the
decorative arts, which were in serious
decline in the 1870s and 1880s. As both
Moreau and Mallarm6 clearly perceived, the sole value of the decorative
arts of the period resided in "collecting"
the aesthetic forms of each people and
each period.
lthough the grand public remained
just as impervious to Moreau's art
as to Mallarm6's, for les dblicats it
signified "the most complex, varied,
modernart of our time."'"Leaving aside
those qualities which corresponded to
the Decadents' overworked sensibilities-the depiction of cruelty, the dark
sensualism and catatonic poses of the
femme fatale-there is an aspect of

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these paintings one can truly call modern. Certainly, it is not to be found in the
mythological themes but, partially, in
the pretext these themes afford for that
extraordinary ornamentation and assemblage of historic and mythological
periods noted in the decorative arts of
the time. It lies, simply put, in the
syntax of Moreau's work, a tour de force
in erecting new combinations. (The parallel here with Mallarme's assemblage
or groupingof words in totally new ways
is, of course, essential; Mallarm6 calls
this procedure "Science" and I shall
show how it works in one of his sonnets.)
For example: Moreau juxtaposes techniques resembling enameling, engraving, lace-making, mosaic, and ceramics;
he constructs form out of the architectural assemblage of human bodies, such
as the lily in Fleur mystique (c. 1890;
Musee G. Moreau) (with its roots composed of saints and the Virgin as stem
and blossom; presage of Art Nouveau's
omnipresentfemme-fleur), or clouds in
Le Grand Pan (1898; Musee G. Moreau), or an ornamental frameworkbrutally violent and erotic-in Les
Pretendants (The Suitors) (Fig. 3). But
the most daring syntactic combination is
the copresence of the painterly and the
linear, the hard-edged, decorative, engraved design, tattooed like an appliqu6
alongside or over the thick impasto of
brilliant colors of turquoise, scarlet, and
gold (Fig. 4). This alliance of two distinct plastic languages, innovative and
deeply personal, is resonant with Symbolism as well as with the decorative
arts.
The interplay of impasto and thinly
washed, transparent surfaces flattened
out by the superimposition of "eninterplay
graved" arabesques-an
sometimes occurring within the same
object-creates a transcendenceof matter where objects seem to float in space,
an evanescence of the material realm,
while it draws attention to both the
materiality and the artifice of the painting medium. One might compare Moreau's own commentary on Jupiter et
Sbmblk(1889; Mus~e G. Moreau) to an
1885 account of chiseled bronze-andgold designs on crystal. Moreau writes
of "an airy architecture covered with an
animated and trembling vegetation";14
the description of the decorative object
emphasizes that "the varied nuances of
gold stand out so well on their transparent background whose tones seem to
disappear in places to let these marvelous appliques [of the insects, flowers,
chimera] float in space."'" Moreau, in
fact, had a beautiful objet d'art in his
apartment, composed of bronze hummingbirds on glass, whose description
resemblesthat of the crystal: "attractive
and decorative are the hummingbirds

-$

Siiii

,ai

i]

.....
..
.

.......

Fig. 2 Moreau, Galatke, 1880, oil on wood, 85 x 67 cm. Paris, Collection Robert
Lebel.
that shimmer near two figures."16
Ornamental details, in addition to
creating the paintings' atmosphere of
mystery, are often intended as symbols.
For example, "Salom6's noble and
divine status is conveyed by her jeweled
attire.""' But the ornamental jeweled
attire serves more than a symbolic function; it also frames the figure, functioning as a compositional device just as it
does in Galatke. A manuscript note by
Moreau underlinesthe framing function
of ornament as well as its religious overtones: "in my Salom6 I should like to
render the idea of a sibyl and religious
enchantress with a pronounced character. I therefore conceived of the costume
as a reliquary."'"Early on in his career,
Moreau wrote that the Italian masters
"feel that in framing the subject with a
profusion of decorative formulas, they
ennoble the subject."" Other paintings
in which the central tableau is set off by

an ornamental framework include: The

Daughters of Thestius (begun 1852;
Mus6e G. Moreau), Hercules and the
Hydra of Lerna (1876; Art Institute of
Chicago), Orestes and the Erynnies
(1891; Turin, G. Agnelli), Salomb
Dancing before Herod (1876; Los
Angeles, The Armand Hammer Collection), Jupiter et SemblU (1889-95;
Mus6e G. Moreau), and Les Prktendants. It would be interesting to follow
the progressionfrom ornament as framing device to its invasion of every part of
the picture in Moreau's later paintings.
There are paintings where ornament
subsumes the event to become the event,
a purely visual, abstract event. That is
why ornament not only is essential to
interpretation, but is the key to the
painting's essence. Thus, not only does
the ornament function as symbol-for
example, in Salome Dancing before
Herod (1876; Los Angeles County
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107

Museum) the lotus equals female sexuality-but the dominance of ornament

over narrative sends the viewer back to
his or her own visual experience of the
"necessary richness" of painting, emphasizing its purely visual, abstract
nature and creating the mystery (which
Moreau also called "abstraction") of
spiritual experience.

'1'

he evocation of thought through

arabesque, and plastic
Iline,
means, that is my goal."20 The way to
the Ideal, for Moreau, was accomplished not through vague, suggestive
form but, on the contrary, through the
meticulous precision of the decor, composed of ornamental design.21 Now
receding into the illusion of a third
dimension, now floating like a transparent veil on the surface of the canvas,
"decorative formulas" produce a shimmering trompe l'oeil that always threatens to overwhelm the distinction
between figure and ground, presence
and void.
The tensions between "the qualities of
material reality, such as perspective,
foreshortening, volumes in light and
shadow," and the internal order of art
are forcefully present in Symbolist art,
according to Robert Goldwater.22But
this is what is so original in Moreau: he
contrived to combine an aesthetics of
illusion with an obsessional concern with

design and the flat plane of the canvas.

In other words, his special form of
trompe l'oeil was at once a resume of
earlier art and a jump forward into the
decorative concerns of Art Nouveau and
the synthktistes.
Whereas trompe l'oeil painters, in
creating the illusion of three-dimensionality, rely on the mutual reinforcement of illusion and expectation, the
phenomenon I am calling trompe l'oeil
in Moreau combines the illusion of
three-dimensionalityin parts of the picture with the destruction of that illusion
elsewhere. He makes us interpret the
visual pattern in front of us in contradictory ways. Do we "switch" from one
reading to the other (in Gombrich's
term), or do we perceive both simultaneously? Gombrich's position is that we
cannot actually "see" ambiguity (we
cannot see "both the plane surface and
the battle horse at the same time").23
But, clearly, this is the direction in
which Moreau-and Mallarm--push
us. We attain a "composite"vision, as in
the scintillation of double images produced by words that Mallarm6 makes
function in two or more ways. Out of the
destruction of our world's stability, both
Mallarm6 and Moreau create an
ephemeral glimpse-a scintillation-of
a completeness beyond the grasp of ordinary perception.

11

r::41

Fig. 3 Moreau, Les Pretendants, 1852-?, oil on canvas, 381 x 348 cm. Paris,
Mus6e Gustave Moreau.
108

he play of presence and void,

impasto and transparency, volume

and flatness, is further complicated by
Moreau's use of light and shadow. The
blinding light in Apparition (1875;
Musee du Louvre), similar to the luminous middle section in Narcisse (1895;
Musee G Moreau) and Hercules and
the Hydra of Lerna, pierces a hole in the
center of pictorial space. Mallarm&also
creates luminous "holes"in the center of
the poem's space. In "Une dentelle
s'abolit," the abolished lace curtain half
opens to reveal the eternal absence of a
bed. This image is qualified as an "unrelieved white conflict" that floats near
the pale window pane.24Another hole is
then evoked: that of a mandolin, out of
whose musical, hollow nothingness
(creux neant musicien) one might have
been born. In "Victorieusement fui le
suicide beau," near-suicide is likened to
the setting sun whose embers of glory,
frothing blood, gold, and tempest
("Tison de gloire, sang par 6cume, or,
temp&te!")leave behind a trace of royal
purple to illuminate the poet's absent
tomb. The first image in "Une dentelle
s'abolit" very much resembles Mallarme's descriptionof Persian carpets in
the third letter on the London Exposition: "At times, striking surprise for the
eye used to the interlace of woven or
embroidered lines, a stretch of large
white or yellow surface captivates us by
its unified tone."25
On the other hand, an apparent hole
can show itself to the full of detail, as in
Moreau's Chimeres (see Fig. 1). On
closer examination of the jewel-like light
of the figures emerging from the nothingness of the painting's dark recesses in
Salome Dancing before Herod, the eye
sees the crystallization of light taking
place in the furthest reaches of the
decor. Moreau has given us a representation of the mystery with which Mallarm6 was to occupy himself: the creative power of the Void.
The transformationof "empty" space
produces a vibratory trompe l'oeil in
Mallarm6's "Surgi de la croupe et du
bond"26of 1887. Here, the contours of a
delicately curved vase also function as
the outline of two profiles: those of the
poet's mother and her lover, very much
like the famous Gestalt image (Fig. 5).
This illustrationof a perceptualproblem
is entitled "L'Impossible baiser ou le
vase" ("The impossible kiss or the
vase"). In Mallarm6's poem, not only is
the lovers' kiss absent (impossible), but
the vase is the receptacle of "aucun
breuvage" (no drink). The ornamental
object is what separates the two lovers.
In freezing their proximity in the timeless immobility Symbolism prizes, the
resurgence of the vase obliterates their
presence as well. This paradox elevates

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was the decorative solution to the problem of interrelating figure and ground,
ornament and empty space, a solution
that merited a three-page exposition in
the 1885 work of H. Mayeux, La Composition d&corative. As Mayeux explained, Byzantine art had always been
preoccupied with gracing the background areas with an ornamental contour, and Italian decorative artists of the
Renaissance developed this concept in
making the background an exact counterpart of the ornament. In seventeenthcentury France, Boulle stretched the
viewer's perceptual capacities in his
ornements h double jeu, where a black
background and white ornamental design imperceptibly exchange roles.
Clearly, Mayeux's historical progression points to a problematizing of
the figure-ground relationship, where
the figure no longer enjoys primacy over
the ground, and the eye is made to
consider a field more complex in its
interrelations.
Another way of handling the figureground problem in decorative composition is remarked upon by Mayeux: the
tendency of ornamental decor to frame
and highlight the void:
How many times does one not see,
in architecture as well as in furniture, painting, or bronze, a given
assemblage of decorative accessories, an ornate frame covered with
figures, chimera, garlands, all
motifs full of promise, serve to
valorize an empty medallion."27

.......
........
........
...

Fig. 4 Moreau, Salomb dansant (La Salomb tatoube), 1876, oil on canvas, 92 x
61 cm. Paris, Mus e Gustave Moreau.

!(1

Fig. 5 L'Impossible Baiser ou le Vase,

author's sketch.

the physical desire of the lovers to a

virtual, metaphysical desire. Again, it is
out of this absence, whose contours are
always represented by a decorative
object, that the Ideal vision springs.
The inspirationfor such a design may
well have been influenced by the decorative arts. Vases converted into lamps,
Sevres vases, and enameled vases were
the object of commentary in the poet's
articles on the International Exposition,
and Galle had won three gold medals in
the 1884 Exposition at the Palais d'Industrie only three years before the publication of this poem. But most important

Decorative objects, in Mallarm6's

texts, function in trompe l'oeil; fans,
pieces of lace, ornate golden frames,
knickknacks--once transposed into this
universe-"s'6tale [nt] plus larges"
while maintaining their intimate resonance. Their disappearance or fundamental absence ("nul ptyx, aboli bibelot
d'inanit6 sonore"; "une dentelle s'abolit" ["no ptyx, abolished knickknack of
sonorous inanity"; "lace passes into
Nothingness"28])functions in the poem
as the central motif, which is then highlighted and surrounded by a myriad of
decorative forms in the decor and in the
intricate and repetitive sonorities of the
poem's language. The disappearance of
the decorative object, elevated to the
status of Symbol, at once constitutes the
void and producesa proliferationof decorative effects that echo this absence at
the same time as they representits transcendence of nothingness. The immobility of these objects is transmuted in this
incantation of repeated sonorities and
decorative motifs, which quickly become vertiginous as the reader attempts
to trace all of their internal connections
within the poem. The curious nature of
immobility, produced by the decorative
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109

objects and effects in the poem, is akin

to the trompe l'oeil effect of the Gestalt
image described earlier; a hieratic, symbolic form, seemingly frozen in space,
reveals itself as a shimmeringvacillation
of form. The simultaneous expansion
and effacement of a dentelle, eventail
(fan), or bibelot is an illustration of the
road to the Absolute; the sensual, concrete object gives way, before our eyes,
to its Ideal form.29And decorative form
is most apt, curiously, to represent the
Ideal because it is perceived as nonsignifying and purely formal.

n 1874, Mallarm6founded,edited,

and wrote most of the articles for La

Dernibre Mode, a magazine of fashion,
the arts, and high society. (As early as
1872 he had dreamed of founding a
monthly gazette to be called L'Art
D&coratif.)This aspect of his work cannot be dismissed as trivial;indeed, Remy
de Gourmont called these articles "authentic and charming prose poems,"30
and Mallarm6 himself, in an 1885 letter
to Paul Verlaine, wrote that the issues
still served "a [lui] faire longtemps
rever."3' In the initial article he
exclaims, "LaD&coration!tout est dans
ce mot"; and in subsequent articles his
descriptions of and comments on contemporary fashion accessories-feathers, laces, diadems, fans--draw parallels between the decorative and the
poetic. On feathers (la plume was a
commonplace metonymy for the pen
and the name of a Symbolist journal of
the period), for example:
Nothing so pretty and shimmering
for the eye as this ornament....
[T]he feather ... seems to wish to
efface under its mad, light invasion the hard, sparklingjet.
And on a diadem:

lui-mme" appeared, offering a veritable illustration of the emergence of

sumptuousness out of the void. This
dreamlike vision, stripped to its bare
metaphysical bones, was recast in 1887
and entitled "Ses purs ongles. .. ." (often referred to as "Le Sonnet en yx"), a
sonnet Mallarm6 described as "as black
and white as possible."
"Ses purs ongles tres haut ..."
("Le Sonnet en Yx")
Ses purs ongles tres haut
d diant leur onyx
L'Angoisse, ce minuit,
soutient, lampadophore,
Maint rave vesperalbr1^ilpar
le Phknix
Que ne recueille pas de
cineraire amphore.
Sur les cr6dences au salon
vide: nul ptyx,
Aboli bibelot d'inanit6
sonore,
(Car le maitre est allk puiser
des pleurs au Styx
Avec ce seul objet dont le
Neant s'honore).
Mais proche la croisee au
nord vacante, un or
Agonise selon peut-8tre le
dicor
Des licornes ruant du feu
contre une nixe,

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11

Elle, defunte nue en le miroir, 12

encor
Que dans l'oubli ferm6 par le 13
cadre, se fixe
14
De scintillations sit0t le
Septuor.
The visual forces at work in this poem
rely heavily on decorative effects found
in paintings of the period as well as in
the decorative arts. I have grouped these
visual forces under four headings: luminosity, framing, mirroring, and trompe
l'oeil.

seems to function similarly as a Kantian

"leere Gegenstand ohne Begriff." (It
should be noted that Mallarm6 referred
to his poems at times as knickknacks,
bibelots.)
Luminous objects, however, glimmer
in this decor: the onyx of upraised fingernails (1), the candelabra metaphor
for Anguish (2), the gold of an ornamental frame that in its contortions figures
fiery unicorns chasing a water nymph
(9-11), and, of course, the scintillations
of the stars, specifically, the Septuorthe seven stars of Ursa Major (14).33 In
fact, the "narrative movement" of the
text is constituted by the three luminous
"moments":the initiatory gesture of the
fingertips raised high in dedication of
their onyx, and the two images in the
tercets-one decorative, one cosmicthat echo their scintillation. That the
cosmic is superimposed on the decorative object cannot escape our attention.
The sumptuousness of the poem is
largely auditory, and I have underlined
some of its sonorousrichness above. The
visual counterpartto the auditory sumptuousness is centered in the image of the
gold frame and picked up again in the
mirrorit surrounds.
Framing: The first instance of framing
is that of lampadophore, which contains
amphore; there follow pleurs au Styx/
leur onyx, s'honore/sonore, au nord/un
or, and des licornes/dbcor. Ptyx is the
central object, which, if it does not fully
enclose them, draws into itself the other
two rhymes in -yx on either side of it.
The window (la croisbe) is a visual
frame containing crossed lines, or x's.
As the reader "looks through" the
vacancy of the window-poem-tableauto
perceive the vertiginous relationships
(cross-references or x's) in it, he or she
becomes aware of the architectural
necessity of the frame that "fixes" this
vision. Lines 7 and 8 are framed by
parentheses. The image that sums up
this operation is, once again, the ornamental frame that encloses the mirror.
Since the mirror reflects part of the
scene in the frame, one might say that
the latter frames itself as well. It also
encloses the reflected constellation,
superimposed over the frame and mirror, whereas the window, a potential
frame for the starry night, is instead
vacant, needing the poetic device of
reflection to stage the appearance of the
constellation. A last remark: the metonymy that denotes "frame," un or, is
itself enclosed nine times in the poem
(2, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14). The ultimate framing operation is to frame
the frame.

four rows of enormous diamonds

mixed in [the] shadow, lost in the
black splendor [of the hair]. What
a miraculous vision, a painting to
imagine more than to paint: for its
fugitive beauty suggests certain
impressions analogous to those of
Luminosity (and sumptuousness) out of
the poet, profoundor fugitive.32
the void: The void is representedby such
It is clear from these passages that words as vide, nul, aboli, Nbant, oubli,
what is suggestive for the poet (in fash- vacante, while images of emptiness are
ion as well as in poetry) is the brilliant evoked by the empty funeral urn (4), the
rivalry between light and darkness, the empty living room (5), the ptyx
gemlike scintillations emerging out of a (whether the word is taken to mean a
dark, empty nothingness capable of seashell minus the animal it once conspawning them, such as I have noted in tained, or whether it is taken to be
out-of
the paintings of Moreau.
perfectly devoid-emptied
In 1866, some eight years before La meaning). This absent, nonexistent obDernibre Mode, Mallarm6 planned to ject acts as a mirrorfor the other rhymes
dedicate twenty years to a grandiose in yx. No sooner is the ptyx evoked than
poetic project entitled Les Allkgories it is abolished by the remarkably incanSomptueuses du Nbant. Two years tatory phrase "Aboli bibelot d'inanit6 Mirroring: This sonnet owes much of its
later, his poem "Sonnet allkgorique de sonore." Knickknack, its apposite, also "attitudeof Mystery"to the unsurpassed
110

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quantity and variety of internal mirrors,

which Mallarm6 called "reciprocal distant fires." Here indeed the words "s'exaltent a mainte facette" like the gems
that emerge out of the black decor of
midnight. Those I have noted as part of
the framing device also belong here, for
they mirroreach other almost exactly. In
Mallarm6's difficult image in the final
tercet (12), mirror and frame, enclosed
and enclosure, are shown, linguistically,
as capable of a trompel'oeil:the mirroris
framed but creates a perceptualproblem
when it reflects that frame. Among the
wealth of semantic and phonetic reflections are Phenix/feu contre une nixe,
ongles/onyx (here the object metamorphoses strangely before our eyes into the
luminous material of which it is made; a
"repetition" reveals itself as a transformation), and the most incantatory combination of repeated sonorities in the
sonnet: aBOLI BIBeLOt d'INaNIt6
sONOre.
Trompe l'oeil: The passage from an
object to its synecdoche ongles/onyx (1)
in the space of one line of verse operates
as a trompe l'oeil (do we visualize the
object or the substance of which it is
composed?). The substitution of the
gem (ornament) for the word fingernails
removes the object from the realm of the
ordinary (something the adjective purs
had already contrived to do), preparing
the reader's acceptance of the personification and double metaphor of Anguish
raising its nails/onyx/glowing tips of a
candelabra. (The syntax of the poem
allows us to see the three interchangeably.) I have already commented on the
interpenetration of mirror and frame.
The reflection in the void/oubli, moreover, is the scene of a shimmering undecidability between the intimate proportions of the interior decor of the room
and the superimposition of the starry
firmament.34 In the same way, the
everyday, intimate furnishings of the
room (credenzas, knickknacks, gold
frame) undergo a metaphysical expansion (ils "s'6talent plus larges") by virtue of the silence and immobility of the
void that surroundsthem. The insertion
of mythic elements in the sonnet (the
Phoenix, the Styx, the unicorns, and
water nymph) further removes them
from the realm of the ordinary. Yet-and herein lies the trompe l'oeil
effect-they never completely lose their
intimate resonance.
Another manifestation of trompe
l'oeil is the simultaneous appearance
and disappearance of objects that are
named but absent (the ptyx, the credenzas, the funerary urn).
The final "doublejeu" I would note is
the link between the word sonore, used
to qualify the knickknack,and the words

un or, synecdoche for the frame. The

abolished decorative object situated in
the poem's center (6) reappears in the
frame (9-13). Disappearance, transformation, and reappearance take place
within the context of decorative objects.
Indeed, it is the decor that contains the
or that illuminates the scene. It is son or
(its gold) that shimmers in the word
sonore. The decorative frame not only
encloses the absence (oubli) of the mirror but captures, too, the stars' scintillations in it. This jewel-like pattern is
assimilated to the musical sonorities of
the sonnet by the metaphor Septuor
(septet): the French sonnet's architecture is, of course, 4 and 3 (quatrains
and tercets).35
Ornament, the perfect counterpartto
the void, is what permits the void to take
form, to become visible.36And when it
does, it manifests itself as a scintillation.

( G

iven the symbolist desire to

bypass appearance, the visual
arts were at [a] disadvantage," states
Robert Goldwater.37But Goldwater has
already quoted from theories of Henry,
Gauguin, Seurat, and Aurier that
clearly hold that the material envelope is
a necessary component of the symbol.
(Emile Gall6, too, searching for the
"decorative quality of the Symbol"
states that the symbol is "always the
translation . . . of an idea by an
image."38) Albert Aurier, in his 1890
article on Van Gogh in the Mercure de
France, describes Van Gogh as a "symbolist feeling the constant necessity of
clothing his ideas in precise, ponderable,
tangible forms, in intensely sensuous
and material envelopes."39In observing
this marriage of tangible form and the
Idea also in the work of Gauguin in an
1891 article, Aurier uses it as the basis
for a definition of Symbolism. What is
more, the definition he offers is at the
core of the "true work of art": "1)
Ideist, for its unique ideal will be the
expression of the Idea. 2) Symbolist, for
it will express this Idea by means of
forms. 3) Synthetist, for it will present
these forms, these signs, according to a
method which is generally understandable. 4) Subjective, for the object will
... be considered as ... the sign of an
idea perceived by the subject. 5) [It is
consequently] Decorative-for decorative painting, in its proper sense, ... is
nothing other than a manifestation of
art at once subjective, synthetic, symbolist and ideist."40
By a different route, this study of
Moreau and Mallarm6 has arrived at
the same conclusion: decorative art fulfills the aims of Symbolism in very precise ways. Reduced to its most essential
elements, the import of the decorative
arts for Moreau's and Mallarm6's Sym-

bolism can be seen in: 1) the application

of a "necessary richness" to create an
atmosphere of mystery, 2) empty space
surrounded by rich ornamentation as
the architectural foundation of the
poem-picture, 3) the use of a "cloisonn6" technique to intensify luminosity, 4) "floating" figures in space, produced by unusual transitions from the
painterly to the linear, 5) additive compositions that borrow elements from
diverse historical and mythical sources,
and 6) perceptual ambiguity produced
by an equal attention to decor or "void,"
triggering an oscillation between figure
and ground.
One of Gall6's lighting fixtures is
inscribed with these words: "La V6rit6
s'allumera comme une lampe."41 My
aim here has been to shed light on the
importance of the decorative arts for
Gustave Moreau and St6phane Mallarm6, and in so doing, to indicate the
role of decorative composition in their
particular type of trompe l'oeil. This
compositional technique of interrelating
ornament and void in a trompe l'oeil
proved to be an effective means of making an object simultaneously visible and
absent, and a way to capture in art what
is seemingly ungraspable, insaisissable,
in that fleeting perceptual moment that
is so much like the Symbolist's fugitive,
intuitive manifestation of the Idea.
Notes
1 "Ind6fectiblement le blanc revient.... Virginit6 qui solitairement, devant une transparence
du regard ad6quat, elle-meme s'est comme
divis6e en ses fragments de candeur, I'un et
l'autre, preuves nuptiales de l'Id6e. L'air ou
chant sous le texte, conduisant la divination
d'ici li, y applique son motif en fleuron et
cul-de-lampe invisibles." St6phane Mallarm6,
"Le Mystere dans les lettres," in Oeuvres Complktes, Bibliothque de la Pl6iade, Paris, 1945,
p. 387. Translations, unless otherwise noted,
are mine.
2 Ibid., p. 677.
3 La Revue des Arts Decoratifs, 1880, No. 2,
p. 1.
4 Mallarm6, "L'Exposition de Londres," second
season, May to October 1872, Oeuvres Com'
plktes (cited n. 1), p. 683: "nous sommes
m6me de poser, presque absolument, cet
axiome: que toute invention ayant cess6 dans
les arts d6coratifs, a la fin du siecle dernier, le
r6le critique de notre si cle est de collectionner
les formes usuelles et curieuses n6es de la
Fantaisie de chaque peuple et de chaque
6poque."
5 Commentary from "The Triumph of Alexander the Great," Notebooks, II., Paris, Mus~e
Gustave Moreau, 1897.
6 Commentary from "Chimera," ibid., 1884:
"Cette ile des raves fantastiques renferme
toutes les formes de la passion, de la fantaisie,
du caprice chez la femme, la femme dans son

Summer 1985

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111

essence premiere, I'&treinconscient, folle de

l'inconnu, du mystere."
7 Mallarm6, "L'Expositionde Londres,"Oeuvres
Complktes (cited n. 1), p. 685. "Leurs oeuvres
inspir6es, selon le double courant archaic et
exotique reconnu, des faiences anciennes d'Europe et de celles de la Perse, du Maroc et du
Japon, portent toutefois, un cachet ind6finissable auquel convient seul le nom de: moderne."
8 Mallarm6's intuitive linking of technical brio
with renewal and modernity was in fact correct,
since the decadence of the decorativearts in the
second half of the nineteenth century was in
part due to the decline of the crafts tradition.

that this "frame" refuses to function as ground,

and instead insinuates itself into the space or
role usually reserved for the figure. In Les
Pr&tendants,moreover,the outer "framework"
of dead bodies strewn all along the bottom of
the composition and forming a sinuous arabesque was added on much later. I see this
addition as a further confirmationof the deliberate problematizing of the role of the decorative frame.
22 Robert Schmutzler's Art Nouveau, N.Y.,
1964, as cited by Robert Goldwater, Symbolism, New York, 1979, p. 69.
23 E. H. Gombrich, Art and Illusion, Washington, D.C., 1965, p. 279. However, a persuasive
argument for the possibility of simultaneous
perception of ambiguity is made by Anton
Ehrenzweig in The Hidden Order of Art,
Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1967, esp. pp. 2142, who writes we must assume that artists
possess the ability to "unfocus" attention so
that both figure and ground are copresent.

9 J.-K. Huysmans, "Salon Officiel de 1880,"

L'Art moderne, Paris, 1975, p. 145: "M. Gustave Moreau est un artiste extraordinaire,
unique. .... Abime dans l'extase, il voit resplendir les f6eriques visions. ... Les m6thodesqu'il
emploie pour rendre ses raves visibles paraissent empruntees aux proced6s de la vieille
gravure allemande, a la c6ramique et a la
joaillerie; il y a de tout lI-dedans, de la mosai- 24 "A lace [curtain] is abolished/In the doubt of
the supreme Game/Half opening like a blasque, de la nielle, du point d'Alencon, de la
broderie patiente des anciens ages et cela tient
phemy/Only eternal absence of a bed./This
unrelieved white conflict/Of a garland with its
aussi de I'enluminuredes vieux missels et des
aquarelles barbaresde l'antique Orient."
like/Having fled onto the pale pane/Is floating
more than burying." This translation of "Une
10 Helen Trudgian, L'Esthetique de J.-K. HuysDentelle s'abolit.. ." is from Leo Bersani's The
mans, Geneva, 1970, p. 249.
Death of Stephane Mallarmb, Cambridge,
11 Henri Mayeux, La Composition dbcorative,
England, 1982.
Paris, 1885, p. 154.
25 Mallarm6, Oeuvres Complktes (cited n. 1),
12 Cited by Henri Matile, Emaux du Moyen-Age,
p. 677.
Lausanne, 1971.
26 "Risen out of the rump and the bound/Of an
13 Paul Flat, Le Musee Gustave Moreau, Paris,
ephemeral glassware/... I think that two
mouths have not/Drunk, neither her lover nor
1899, emphasis mine.
my mother/Ever from the same chimera,"
14 Moreau, Notebooks, II (cited n. 5), pp 41-44.
ibid., p. 74.
15 Moreau, "Art, luxe et fantaisie," Revue des
27 Mayeux (cited n. 11), p. 174.
Arts D&coratifs,Paris, 1885.
28 The translation, "Lace passes into Nothing16 Quoted by Pierre-Louis Mathieu in Gustave
ness," is Patricia Terry's and M. Z. Shroder's
Moreau et son oeuvre, Paris, 1976, p. 96.
in Stephane Mallarme: Selected Poetry and
17 Julius Kaplan, Gustave Moreau, Los Angeles,
Prose, ed. Mary Ann Caws, New York, 1982.
1974, p. 34.
29 Mallarm6 gives a more explicit description of
the means used to arrive at the Absolute in
18 Quoted in ibid., p. 144. "Dans ma Salom6, je
earlier writings, notably in "Igitur ou la folie
voudrais rendre une figure de sibylle et d'end'Elbehon" (1869). Elsewhere, he states that
chanteresse religieuse avec un caractere. J'ai
alors conqu le costume qui est comme une
"pour exister dans l'Absolu, il faut adopter une
chasse."
vertigineuse immobilit6."
19 Ary Renan, Gustave Moreau, 1826-1898, Paris, 1900, p. 43, quotes this statement. "Dans le
sentiment [des maitres italiens] c'est ennoblir
le sujet que de l'encadrer d'une profusion de
formules d6coratives."
20 "L'6vocation de la pens6e par la ligne, l'arabesque et les moyens plastiques, voila mon
but." Quoted in Mathieu (cited n. 16), p. 258.
21 Critical failure to perceive the intimate connection between ornament and the ideal in
Moreau's painting has produced such misjudgments as this: "Ce qui frappe dans cette
composition ["Les Pr6tendants"], c'est l'architecture thitrale qui lui sert de cadre et qui
s'offre au regard ... comme une sorte de toile
de fond ... d6cors A la fois somptueux et
clinquants, d'un goit contestable," Mathieu
(cited n. 16), emphasis mine. We have seen

112

30 R6my de Gourmont,Promenades litteraires, 3C

s6rie, Paris, 1963, p. 21 (orig. pub. 1906).
31 "Autobiographie," in Mallarm6, Oeuvres
Completes (cited n. 1), p. 664. Mallarm6 also
refers here to two texts he encloses for Verlaine
to read as "ces deux bibelots" (these two
knickknacks), p. 665.

appeared in 1897, possesses several parallels

with "Le Sonnet en yx." I will limit myself to
the mention of its remarkable opposition of
plein/vide and figure and ground, thanks to a
radically new typographical disposition on the
page that not only left an equal amount of
empty space but, in its variation of type founts
(abetted by an ambiguous syntax), allowed
phrases to recede in the sentence or come
forward,dependingon the meaning given to the
sentence.
35 The analyses of this poem are legion, and my
own reading owes a debt to Claude Abastado's
"Lecture inversed'un Sonnet nul," Littbrature,
6 (May 1972) and to a seminar in 1976 with
James Lawler (see his Language of French
Symbolism, Princeton, 1969). An important
study, read after my own analysis was written,
shares a common interest in perspective and
ambiguity: Ellen Burt's "Mallarme's 'Sonnet
en yx': The Ambiguity of Speculation," Yale
French Studies, 54 (1977).
36 "Avant meme d'etre rythme et combinaison, le
plus simple theme d'ornement ... chiffre de6j
le vide ouiil parait et lui confere une existence
inedite," Henri Focillon, Vie des Formes, 7th
ed., Paris, 1981, p. 27. ("Even before being
rhythm and combination, the simplest ornamental motif... already defines the void where
it appears and confers a novel, new existence
on it.")
37 Goldwater (cited n. 22), p. 180.
38 Emile Gall6, "Discours de Reception, prononc6
a l'Acad6mie de Stanislas," May 17, 1900, in
Philippe Gardner, Emile Gallb, New York,
1976.
39 Albert Aurier, "Les Isol6s: Vincent van Gogh,"
Mercure de France (January 1890). The
English translation is taken from Goldwater
(cited n. 22), p. 182.
40 Albert Aurier, "Le Symbolisme en peinture:
Paul Gauguin," Mercure de France (March
1891). The English translation is taken from
Goldwater (cited n. 22), pp. 183-84.
41 Quoted and illustrated in Alistair Duncan, Art
Nouveau and Art Deco Lighting, London,
1978.

Rae Beth Gordonis Assistant Professor

of French at Boston University. She
has published in La Rivista di Estetica,
Romanic Review, and
Nineteenth-Century French Studies
and is currently working on a book
entitled Aboli bibelot? The Shape and
Function of Ornament in
Nineteenth-Century French Literature.

32 La DernibreMode (December 20, 1874).

33 In a letter, in which he explicates an early
version of the poem, Mallarm6 identifies Septuor as "la Grande Ourse";but in fact it is Ursa
Minor that has seven stars.
34 "Rien n'aura eu lieu que le lieu ... except6
peut-Ctre ... une Constellation," Mallarm6,
"Un Coup de D6s" ("Nothing will have taken
place but the place [decor] ... except perhaps
... a Constellation"). This poem, which

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