Joris-Karl Huysmans - Lettre autographe signée [à Octave Uzanne sur les Sataniques de Félicien Rops] - 1889

Joris-Karl HUYSMANS (1848-1907)
French writer and art critic

Autograph letter signed to Octave UZANNE
1 f. , 2 p. in-8, letterhead of the Ministry of the Interior
13x10cm
Paris, June 4, 1889

Huysmans mentions a work of writing on Rops about Les Sataniques by Félicien Rops, certainly the text which will be published in Some (Paris, Tresse & Stock, 1889) . He would like to come and take notes on Octave Uzanne's trials, for a "good cause"! The letter is also revealing of the intellectual prison represented by the work of the author of A rebours at the Ministry of the Interior:

"My dear friend,
I would like to be able to spend 20 minutes at your place, without disturbing you, when I leave my office, in order to take the few notes on the Satanics that I need, for the work that I am going to start on the friend Rops.
Which day would bother you the least. I could only - assuming that I am not kept in the awful box until 6 o'clock - escape around 5 o'clock - which is already late, alas!
Finally, sorry for these disturbances. It's for a good cause !
Best regards my dear friend
Your JK Huysmans
11 rue de Sèvres

In 1889, Joris-Karl Huysmans (1848-1907) , novelist and art critic, commented in depth on the 5 soft varnish etchings which make up the Sataniques series by the symbolist painter Félicien Rops (1833-1898) to which he proposes to add the "Diaboliques" for Barbey d'Aurevilly and "a few others which serve as vestibules for the lucubrations of Mr. Peladan: "Satan sowing the tares", "The Rapture", "The Sacrifice", "The Idole" and "Le Calvaire". Regarding Félicien Rops, he concludes his study by indicating: "He, in a word, celebrated this spiritualism of Lust that is Satanism, painted, in imperfect pages, the supernatural of perversity, the beyond of Evil" (Certains, p. 118) .

Precious autograph document for any lover of the work of Félicien Rops. . . of Huysmans. . . but also of Octave Uzanne!