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Modernist Tendencies in the Literature of the Low Countries 1880-19'20

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Modernist Tendencies in the Literature of the Low Countries 1880-19'20 Modernist Tendencies in the Literature of the Low Countries 1880-19'20 A.P. Dierick to the majority of European citizens that a radical questioning of the very foundations and structures of Western society might be in order. I Fin de Siecle And yet such questioning and probing had already taken place in the initial phase of the bourgeoisie's The end of the nineteenth century and the begin­ rise to power. The conflict between the demands of ning of the twentieth is a period of transition in society and those made by the individual is stated the arts, often compared by historians and critics in philosophical terms by Jean Jacques Rousseau, in with earlier periods like the Baroque and Roman­ his contrast between natural and political man, in ticism. The term "mannerism" has been proposed his basic rejection of the "blessings" of civilization to describe such periods, in opposition to so-called and in his propagation of the myth of the "noble "classicist" periods. Whereas the latter may pro­ savage." In much more crude, but also more aggres­ duce art which, at its best, is exemplary and valid sive terms, the· Marquis de Sade elaborates a view for all times, or, conversely, art which is conven­ in which "natural" man is one, as Richard Gilman tional, derivative and facile, "mannerist" art periods writes, who "refuses to be bound by established val­ tend to break down the formal balance achieved in ues, inherited and institutionalized pieties" (81). In classicism, not through incompetence, but through Gilman's view, Sade was "the originator or, more a wilful calling into question of the norms by which accurately, the first compelling enunciator in mod­ the previously stable period of art has come to define ern times of the desire to be other than what soci­ itself. ety determined, to act otherwise than existing moral In the case of the late 19th century, there ap­ structures coerced one into doing." Sade's writings pear at first sight few reasons for this break-up of are after all not only, or even primarily, about sex­ values and beliefs, be they specifically artistic or uality, but about the impossible dream of absolute generally cultural. A relatively unified world view, freedom to live out one's fantasies. Moreover, as which had etablished itself after the French Revo­ Max Borkheimer· and Theodor Adorno have shown lution had brought the bourgeoisie to power, sug­ in their Diale1:tik der A ujklarung, Sade saw clearly gested to those living in the more advanced and that it was productivity, the ever greater desire for prosperous countries of Western Europe that the efficiency, tied to the desire to dominate nature, idea of a steady progress in the amelioration of the which, as the guiding principle of the bourgeoisie human condition was not simply a myth "invented" (and the means as well as the end of progress), stood in the Age of Enlightenment, but was a practical in the way of the ,affective life. Organization ver­ and thoroughly valid idea. The enormous strides sus productive chaos, restrictive rules versus the de­ which the nations of Western Europe had made in sire for freedom, the pressing into the service of all accumulating wealth, through economic and terri­ elements of society in order to produce versus the torial expansion, industrialization and the practical private sphere in which leisure is a moral good be­ use of the achievements of the sciences; the relatively cause it is the realm of fantasy, sexual freedom and stable political constellations under which these na­ non-productivity- these are the dichotomies which tions flourished; and the improvements in the eco­ Sade saw, and which Romanticism took up. nomic, social and intellectual conditions of most of From these conflicts there arose the notion of the populations of these countries did no..t suggest decadence, which, as Gilman argues, is demon- 9 10 Canadian Journal of Netherlandic Studies . strated so well in Chateaubriand, and later in the unbridled freedom reign supreme. In Decadent art, century by Baudelaire and, in the domain of phi­ the outsider - often the artist himself - is the losophy, by Friedrich Nietzsche. Utility as the sole prototype of alternative man; in the realm of free­ criterion of the Good, as the yardstick of progress, dom which is art, the swindler may become a hero is the demon against which art, as an independent (Thomas Mann's Felix Krull) and even the criminal value, revolts. For "if progress is tied to utilitar­ can serve as a potential model. In Aestheticism, on ianism, moral advance no less than material, it is the other hand, the impractical preoccupation, as understandable that art, the pre-eminently imprac­ in Karl-Joris Huysman's A rebours or Oscar Wilde's tical human activity, should become the banner un­ The Picture of Dorian Gray becomes, by virtue of der which the opponents of the age would group its role as protest. against the practical bent of the themselves" (Gilman, 82). It is to the arts that, at bourgeoisie, exemplary and desirable (though it re­ the end of the 19th century, we must look primarily mains, as is understandable, problematic). for an alternative view of reality, for a redressing of In other cases, however, the artist's withdrawal the balance which utilitarianism had tipped so ex­ from everyday concerns indicates not primarily cessively in favour of restriction, organization and protest or contempt, but rather a feeling that iso­ efficiency. lation and loneliness are necessary preconditions But art as an alternative to society as constituted for the creation of art. Lodewijk van Deyssel, in does not always lead to the same results. In the his short introduction to the translation of Oscar work of some authors, the contrast between ratio­ Wilde's De Profundis (1905), stated this idea with nalism and emotionality is formulated almost as a reference to Wilde and the British literary world of contrast between good and evil. Art, in this view, is 1880-1890. Wilde was to him the English represen­ the realm par excellence in which the individual (as tative of French thinking about art and life: artist and as amateur of art) can re-assert himself against the strictures of social patterns and the ever greater demands of the collective. Social strictures imposed by an oppressive collectivity in fact force Hij [Wilde] had zich gevormd in den geest many an artist to withdraw completely from soci­ van Baudelaire, Flaubert en, wat alge­ ety in a kind of protest. This aspect is, according meene levensopvatting, niet wat poesis to Frans Coenen, typical for the movement of the aangaat, ook in dien van Verlaine ... Tachtigers in Holland: Deze levensopvatting en deze let­ Die Tachtigers misten miss chien - of terkunde . beschouwden den intel­ waarschijnlijk - volstrekt niet aIle maat­ lectueele en sensitieve, den kunstenaar, als schappelijke kanten .. , Maar zij wilden on­ een uitzondering op en een tegenstelling tot maatschappelijk zijn. Of anders gezegd: de algemeene menschen-samenleving. De zouden zij zich en hun kunst handhaven, artiest was uit op 'zeldzame' en 'nieuwe zouden zij zelf blijven gelooven in hun gewaarwordingen' en hij leefde door de glo­ nieuwe wereld en een tegenwicht geven rie van het contrast, dat hij, in de eenzaam­ tegen de enorme maatschappelijke sug­ heid zijner geaardheid, tot de wereld om gestie van het oude, dan moeten zij weI en hem heen vormde. (Quoted in Polak, p. het maatschappelijke en het verstandelijke 23). volkomen uitschakelen uit hun kunst en leer. Dan behoorden zij zich ... vierkant Yet another way of looking at art as an alternative, te steIlen tegenover aIle strekkingen van however, and a rather more important one, is to practisch maatschappelijke nuttigheid in see art not merely as a form of protest against cer­ de kunst. Dan moesten zij aIle maatschap­ tain social strictures, but as the privileged domain in pelijke moraal verachten en vertreden, dan which ambivalence and suggestion - as opposed to moesten zij zelfs al het logische, het ver­ destructive science and increasingly impotent logic standelijk opgebouwde versmaden, om het - hold sway, and in which the invisible is made vis­ bandelooze, nergens beperkte gevoel te ible. In art the project is undertaken to come to an laten leven, herleven (Coenen, 27-28) alternative vision of reality, a new and independent Both Decadence and Aestheticism are based on the interpretation of the cosmos and of man's place in kind of thinking that sees art as the realm in which it; this project is above all the concern of the Sym­ fantasy can live its life, and in which pleasure and bolists. Oanadian Journal of Netherlandic Studies 11 II Decadence, Naturalism, Unfortunately, in his subsequent discussion of these Impressionism, Symbolism movements, Scott does not seem to put Decadence on an equal footing with the other two movements; Decadence is a particularly good example of the tra­ the discussion focusses primarily on the differences dition which goes from early protests against mod­ between Symbolism and Impressionism. Scott's ern civilization in the Enlightenment, via Roman­ somewhat vague definition of Decadence can be ticism to a revival of these attitudes in turn-of-the­ complemented, however, by citing John Reed, whose century art. Much of what has been said in a geij.eral definition, in his book .pecadent Style (1985) is one way about Decadence and its roots, however, also based on form. Accotding to Reed, the artist us­ applies to other movements of the same period. In ing Decadent style ;"~oncentrates upon detail, the fact, these various movements are in many respects whole composition toming together as an assembly only variations of a common feeling about life and of these patiently developed elements.
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