Divinely Decadent
One of the more amusing things I see on my walk to work is a cafe called Decadence. You’d think it would be all swathes of velvet, crystal goblets and waiters palely loitering – but no, it’s a nice cafe with gluten free on the menu.
Today we are likely to associate decadence with indulgence – chocolate and lounging about in a deckchair, and maybe even with style as illustrated in the book Divinely Decadent by Stephen Calloway. But in its original artistic form it is a corrupt and seductive force.
Here are some essential decadents to enjoy while reclining on your chaise lounge looking consumptive:
Aubrey Beardsley
Oscar Wilde and Aubrey Beardsley
The two arch aesthetes collaborated on Salome (as illustrated at right) – a riot of decadent ideas and expressions.
Walter Pater
See his The Renaissance. I’m excited to find the full text of this online. One of the most famous extracts is his description of Leonardo’s Mona Lisa:
All the thoughts and experience of the world have etched and moulded there, in that which they have of power to refine and make expressive the outward form, the animalism of Greece, the lust of Rome, the mysticism of the middle age with its spiritual ambition and imaginative loves, the return of the Pagan world, the sins of the Borgias. She is older than the rocks among which she sits; like the vampire, she has been dead many times, and learned the secrets of the grave; …
Charles Baudelaire
especially the ultra decadent Les fleurs du mal (Flowers of evil)
Arthur Rimbaud
A season in hell / Une saison en enfer. You might also enjoy the biography by Graham Robb which admirably conveys all the drama of Rimbaud’s tortured life. It is hard to forget Rimbaud’s fights with lover Verlaine (they fought with knives wrapped in towels amongst other things). This love affair was dramatised in the movie Total Eclipse starring Leonardo diCaprio and David Thewlis.
Find out more:
10 July 2008 at 6:44 pm
Very interesting post. The thing about these chaps is that most of them came to very unpleasant ends. So if we think of decadence as something sweet, you’re right, we should think again. It looks like it all goes quite sour. But then again, its all very fascinating and intriguing to hear about!