HUYSMANS, JORIS KARL. — Writer, born in Paris on 5 February 1848, died there on 12 May 1907. Descended from a Flemish family in which the art of painting had traditionally been loved and cultivated, he defended the then-emerging Impressionism with assured intuition and refined sensibility in stylistically and critically daring pages. These, together with other essays, are collected in the two volumes Certains (Paris 1889) and L'art moderne (there 1902).
Having set out from Naturalism, H. surpassed it in a vision of extreme aesthetic refinement and reached the supernatural through satanic practices, before arriving at the meditations of La Trappe and a Christian death in the expiatory acceptance of suffering. Formed under Zola, when Naturalism was still engaged in its first battles, and having already made his debut in 1874 with Le dragoir aux épices, in which Baudelaire’s influence is perceptible, he testified to his adherence to the movement with Marthe, histoire d'une fille (Brussels 1876) and Les soeurs Vizard (Paris 1879). Naturalism served H. as a means of exercising his exceptional gifts of observation.
Having anatomized reality, he indicated an escape from it through an aesthetic and decadent formula in the novel A rebours (there 1884). On the final page, the autobiographical character declares the spiritual unease that he has been unable to stifle, invoking God’s help in his doubts. But even more than in this book, H. made his spiritual transformation manifest in En route (there 1895), recounting, through the protagonist, his religious conversion, which took place at the Trappe of Notre-Dame d’Igny in 1892.
Nostalgic for the Middle Ages, of which he partly recognized only the religious fervor translated into mystical visions and exquisite works of art, in La cathédrale (there 1898) he offered an interpretation of Catholic symbolism and demonstrated how susceptible he was to the aesthetic charm of worship. During his retreat in the abbey of Ligugé he wrote the life of Ste Lydwine de Schiedam (there 1901) and L'oblat (there 1903). In 1905, in Les foules de Lourdes, he united a ruthless observation of reality with faith in the supernatural.
Variousely judged and opposed, having brought his entire excessive temperament as a man and artist into his religious conversion, he occupies a decidedly personal position in relation to the Church; yet the sincerity of his heart before the God he had rediscovered cannot be diminished.