HUYSMANS, JORIS KARL. — Writer, born in Paris on 5 Feb. 1848, died there on 12 May 1907. Descended from a Flemish family in which the art of painting was traditionally loved and cultivated, with sure intuition and refined sensitivity he defended the then-nascent Impressionism in stylistically and critically bold pages. These are collected, along with other essays, in the two volumes *Certains* (Paris 1889) and *L'art moderne* (ibid. 1902).
Starting from Naturalism, H. surpassed it in an extremely refined and aesthetic vision and arrived at the supernatural through Satanic practices, before reaching the meditations of La Trappe and Christian death in the expiatory acceptance of suffering. Having trained under Zola when Naturalism was in its early battles, and having already debuted in 1874 with *Le dragoei aux épices*, in which the influence of Baudelaire is evident, he testified to his adherence to the movement with *Marthe, histoire d'une fille* (Brussels 1876) and *Les soeurs Vatard* (Paris 1879). Naturalism served H. as a means to exercise his exceptional powers of observation.
Having anatomized reality, he indicated an escape from it through an aesthetic and decadent formula in the novel *À rebours* (ibid. 1884). On the final page the autobiographical character declares the spiritual discomfort that he could not suppress, invoking God’s help in his doubts. But more than in this book, H. made manifest his spiritual change in *En route* (ibid. 1895), recounting, through the protagonist, his religious conversion, which had taken place at the Trappist monastery of Notre-Dame de Igny in 1892.
Nostalgic for the Middle Ages, whose religious fervor he recognized only in its mystical visions and exquisite works of art, he gave in *La cathédrale* (ibid. 1898) an interpretation of Catholic symbolism and demonstrated how susceptible he was to the aesthetic charm of worship. During his retreat at the abbey of Ligugé he wrote the life of *Ste Lydwine de Schiedam* (ibid. 1901) and *L'oblat* (ibid. 1903). In 1905 in *Les foules de Lourdes* he united merciless observation of reality with faith in the supernatural.
Judged and opposed in various ways, having brought his entire excessive temperament as a man and an artist into his religious conversion, he occupies a certainly personal place with respect to the Church, but one cannot diminish the sincerity of his heart before the God he had rediscovered.
**