Idols of Perversity: Fantasies of Feminine Evil in Fin-de-Siecle Culture

Students of polymorphous perversity should consider having this book the equivalent of a lifetime membership in an illustrated encyclopedia in artistic themes which use women as a prop. The Index (pp. 429-453) provides page numbers for locating the works of particular artists and the occasional mention of a book like ALICE IN WONDERLAND (Carroll). Great thinkers like Freud, Nietzsche, and Mark Twain are mentioned less than a snake biting its tail: Uroboros, as feminine principle, is covered in nine places on 14 pages, mostly on and between pages 128-148. Charles Darwin, Darwinism, and Social Darwinism crop up more often, but hardly as much as Mythology. Back in 1986, when Oxford University Press published the first edition, there were economic reasons for having all the pictures in black and white. I prefer color myself, but there is an illustration, VIII, 11. Andrea Carlo Lucchesi (1860-1924), "The Myrtle's Altar," sculpture (ca. 1891) which appears to be about half marble precariously perched above a crown and a necklace containing a crucifix dangling alongside a tree trunk in which the marble portion of the picture is so white and striking that anything which drew attention to the portions of the picture which appear to be a drab gray on page 252 would merely detract from the incredible stare which changes her posture from a form of pouting withdrawal to some serpentine potential to strike: The eyes of Lucchesi's young lady, snakelike and piercing, are no longer turned inward but display a hypnotic, aggressive quality. She sizes up the (male) viewer with a licentious intensity calculated to produce in him, in Max Nordau's words, "the morbid state of degeneracy which renders a man a woman's plaything and the victim of his own temperament" (Paradoxes, 258). I am quoting from Bram Dijkstra's book, IDOLS OF PERVERSITY / FANTASIES OF FEMININE EVIL IN FIN-DE-SIECLE CULTURE, page 252, just under the picture. In addition to comments by critics of those times, the book has some examples of the poems written by painters expressing their feelings about their subjects. The poem "Aspecta Medusa" by Dante Gabriel Rossetti was meant to accompany a drawing which does not appear on page 137 where nine lines of the poem appear. The book is organized into eleven topics on grand schemes that frequently mention pictures which are not shown. It does not seem likely that anyone would be able to see everything by looking at the books in the Bibliography, which has sources quoted on pages 403-410, Exhibition Catalogues, Periodicals, and a further series of nonfiction texts on pp. 411-424 including four works by Freud and three volumes (actually containing four titles of published works) by Nietzsche. That Freud and Nietzsche get so little attention in this book tends to draw our attention away from intellectual slavery to a fixed system and allow an appreciation of the incredibly diverse richness of the ideas available for discussion in a culture that

I don't know how this qualifies as a direct written review, but I was so inspired by this book when I first read it at least 10 years ago, (I've reread it a few times each year in between) that for at least 10 years, greatly in part as a gesture of gratitude to Mr. Dijkstra, I have anxiously been working to compliment the fine research of Mr. Dijkstra by "re-illustrating" it with contemporary images from "this past century." He has been an inspiration to me, I hope he will be impressed with my gesture. (From one century into this next, -More from me later!) Pepe Paras

This is the sort of book that can only be the product of decades of passionate interest, study and research -- a once in an author's lifetime effort. I leaned heavily on the big shoulders of this brilliant study in the research for the second chapter of my book, COMPLICATED WOMEN. Dijkstra has seen every painting from the 19th century and has understood them. The book is lavishly illustrated. It's all written with wit and liveliness. This is not a dry book at all. I was enormously impressed and recommend it to anyone interested in art or women's studies -- or in having a new world revealed.

If you have read Nordau's -Degeneration-, you will find that the most appealing part of that tome to the present day reader will be the fact that it serves as admirable Baedeker to the highlights of late 19th century (mostly French) literature. It does so in the form of a moralistic tract, founded in the public-healthism of Nordau's era, and specifically Cesare Lombroso's attempt to create a "science" of what might be best termed as forensic phrenology. [Lombroso maintained that criminals displayed hereditary "atavistic" traits, and that therefore by looking for facial features he deemed "atavistic," criminal tendencies could be weeded out of the population. Nordau then applied Lombroso's criteria to identify many literary titans as atavistic moral degenerates.]More people may be familiar with Mario Praz's -The Romantic Agony-, again a tract tinged with moral hostility against the stasis and cruelty of "decadence," that once again serves as a lovely field guide to Symbolist and late Romantic poetry. Praz, perhaps fortunately for his present reputation, sticks with non-falsifiable and purely artistic criticisms.The point here is that Nordau's and Praz's books in fact add relish and anticipation to the literary works they describe despite their moralistic thunders against them. It's applying reverse psychology to the Paglia/Spenser effect --- for Camille Paglia's -Sexual Personae-, whatever other merits or demerits it may have, has won more readers for Spenser's -Faerie Queene- these past several years than the poem probably had over the past century.-Idols of Perversity- purports to analyze images from late 19th century art in the light of feminist doctrine, with an eye to the (rather obvious) thesis that these figures represent male sexual fantasies, often misogynistic, and not flesh and blood women. Unlike most other tracts of cultural criticism that start from the moral assumptions of identity politics, Dijkstra's at least has the merit of actually persuading its readers that the hypothesis it wishes to develop is true.On the other hand, the moralizing tone of the work gives it a place on the same shelf as Nordau and Praz; more so because the book is of necessity handsomely illustrated with dozens of interesting fantasy paintings, many by largely forgotten artists --- the fact, of course, that first attracted my attention to it in the first place. If you have any interest in these pictures at all, -Idols- is a handy reference guide, and Dijkstra's text serves the ironic purpose of making the pictures seem that much more wickedly fun, just as his distinguished predecessors do.

This book reproduces hundreds of the most beautiful, eccentric, and unique paintings and sculptures ever made, complete with a marvelously entertaining commentary that "reveals" the sinister, patriarchial threat of each.The greatest surprise is the obscurity yet quality of these works--you won't see them reproduced in any other art book, yet they are too entertaining and (sometimes) just plain daffy to deserve oblivion. Since subject matter is all that interests Mr.Dijkstra, they are unfortunately all in black and white, but the bold expressiveness of the compositions makes this only a minor flaw.Almost as rich as this aesthetic feast is Mr. Dijkstra's commentary. Are you amused by 19th Century Puritanical screeds, right-wing condemnation of the Arts, or the Nazis' blather about "degenerate art"? If so, this scholar's views will be a revelation: a dour, fanatical, left-wing perspective! He has great insights into 19th Century culture, psychology, and "sexual politics," and these increase tenfold your enjoyment of the art.But I was most delighted by his hilarious extremism, his intolerance for anything that won't fit within a microscopic window of "political correctness." The self-righteousness, the delusions (he describes a bucolic scene of frolicking cherubs as a harbinger of the Holocaust) and the choking fury he expends at long-dead paupers are a once-in-a-lifetime thrill. Thank you, Mr. Dijkstra! Beyond a doubt, the most memorable art critique I've ever read.