The following are considered decadent: abnormality (madness, genius), provocation, extravagance, ugliness, infirmity (degeneration), perversion, deviation, passivity, weakness, artificiality, Narcissism…But the list also includes ironic distance which renders things uncertain; aphoristic quizzical paradoxes and uncompromising doubt; critical scepticism; consciousness of the “otherâ€; a demand for a universal validity of aesthetics and a universal quality of differentiating imaginations; sophistication of meaning and expression; architecture of reversions, variations, tone values and nuances; subtlety of stylization and mystification; melancholic illusionism; majestic exclusivity; egotism.Decadence originates through a subjective linking of extremes regarding the content of Naturalism and Symbolism, through a linking of pathology of the body and the spirit of art. The disruptiveness of Decadence is programmatic. Decadence in the visual arts represents the dynamic duality of order and chaos, the painful moment of birth of a new life and new structure. An interest in extreme situations in the course of searching for one’s own identity and the meaning of life is a characteristic of Decadence. Decadence is founding the courage to name the world and life in all its brands and abundance, it was drawn to the possibility of discovering its depth even at price of discovering its horrors and madness. The world full of wars, uprising, revolutions, social conflicts, has to be destroyed, the mirror which helped Perseus to kill Medusa has to be held up for it to see its own face. The illusion of the permanence of ethical principles has to be destroyed or at least changed and the examination of the reverse face of human existence to be continued still deeper.
What do you define as “Decadence� artists, writers, monsters, Marquis de Sade, mismatched characters, those in the depths of madness, you know the usual bunch ;)
Joris-Karl Huysmans, Against the GrainCharles Baudelaire, Flowers of EvilThomas Mann, Death in Venice: And Seven Other StoriesFriedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake ZarathustraLadislav Klima, The Suffering of Prince SternenhochGerald de Nerval, Aurelia and Other WritingsMarquis de Sade, Justine, Philosophy in Bedroom and Other WritingsLeopold von Sacher-Masoch, "Venus in Furs"Georges Bataille, "The Story of Eye"Octave Mirbeau, "The Torture Garden"Comte de Lautreamont, "Maldoror and the Complete Works of Comte de Lautreamont"Oscar Wilde, "Picture of Dorian Gray"Paul Leppin, "The Road to Darkness"Gustave Flaubert, "Temptation of St Anthony"Alfred Kubin, "The Other Side"Thomas de Quincey, "Confession of an English Opium Eater"Mikhail Artsybashev, "Sanin. A Novel "Paul Veraline, "The Cursed Poets"Stephane Mallarme, "Collected Poems and other Verse"Antonin Artaud, "Heliogabalus": or "The Crowned Anarchist"Gabriele D’Annunzion, "The Book of Virgins"Rachilde, "Monsieur Venus"H. H. Ewers, "Spider"Leonid Andreyev, "Seven who Were Hanged"Theophil Gautier, "Mademoiselle de Maupin"Knut Hamsun, "Hunger"
artisits: ODILON REDON, FRANTISEK KUPKA , EMIL HOLAREK ,EDVARD MUNCH ,JOSE GUADALUPE POSADA ,FRANTISEK KOBLIHA ,ALFRED KUBIN ,JOSEF VACHAL ,GEORGES MELIES ,SALVADOR DALI ,MAX ERNST ,WILLIAM BLAKE ,PIERRE ET GILLES, EGON SCHIELE