The Dutch Sensitivists

An excellent introduction by Edmund Gosse to Louis Couperus's 1891 novel
Footsteps of Fate ('Noodlot') translated from the Dutch by Clara Bell. Gosse corresponded with Couperus but he wrote well informed  introductions similar to this to every book in Heinemann's long series of European novels. They show great scholarship and an enthusiasm for the emerging movements in writing in the last decade of the 19th century. While Britain had its aesthetic 1890s movement and the Celtic Twilight and the French their decadent writers the Dutch had the 'Sensitivists'…There are interesting references to the Dutch Browning (the poet Potgieter) also resident in Florence and also to Netscher the Dutch George Moore, a singular honour.

THE DUTCH SENSITIVISTS

In the intellectual history of all countries we find the same phenomenon incessantly recurring. New writers, new artists, new composers arise in revolt against what has delighted their grandfathers and satisfied their fathers. These young men, pressed together at first, by external opposition, into a serried phalanx, gradually win their way, become themselves the delight and then the satisfaction of their contemporaries, and, falling apart as success is secured to them, come to seem lax, effete and obsolete to a new race of youths, who effect a fresh aesthetic revolution.

Minor Symbolists 2 (Nicholas Kalmakoff)

More from  this article Unisex, 1910-Style found in a forgotten antiques bulletin The Four in Hand Letter from May 1970.

It was in 1962 that the work of a rather more bizarre artist, Nicholas Kalmakoff, was newly discovered in the Paris Flea Market. Kalmakoff was born in Russia in 1873 and the earliest influence on his life was a German governess who taught him to believe in the Devil -- a recurring theme in his paintings. He studied painting in Italy and returned to St. Petersburg in about 1903. He became immersed in all sorts of strange mystical and sexual cults and probably even attended the satanic meetings that Rasputin was holding at the time.

In 1908 he was commissioned to do the costumes and decor for Wilde's Salome and his interpretation was so shockingly extravagant (the interior of the theatre was designed to closely resemble the most unmentionable part of a woman!) that the production was taken off on the first night.


Unfortunately Kalmakoff's unhealthy reputation had reached such a peak that he eventually had to leave Russia and after exhibitions at Latvia and Belgium he settled in Paris. His last and rather unsuccessful exhibition was held there in 1928. In 1955 he died in an old people's home.

Kalmakoff's work is curiously compelling -- painted in the brilliant and rich colours of Russian church paintings. Philippe Julian in his introduction to Hartnoll & Eyre's current exhibition describes how these extraordinary paintings were discovered: 'When they wiped the dust off, monkeys were revealed, dressed in Louis XIV costume but with expressions of austere, icon-like ecstasy, Christ dripping with pearls; angels dripping with blood; heavy, pallid women, squatting in entwined embrace, gazing at each other with the glaucous eyes of toads; ancient forgotten gods, adorned with Christian ornaments, parading Faberge flowers and beaded with gilt perspiration. Angkor or Memphis or Byzantium provided the background for extravagant sacrilegious rites'.

Sensuality and eroticism in the form of bold hermaphrodite figures and phallic symbolism are all interwoven with the weaving, twisting patterns of paint. His canvases, when not signed with his name, even have a phallic hieroglyph as his mark.

One of the main influences on Kalmakoff's work was Burne-Jones who together with Gustave Moreau and Boecklin also influenced Von Stuck, Delville, Levy-Dhurmer, Knoppf and most of the other Symbolists painters.

Another field during the early years of this century which was liberally sprinkled with exceptionally good artists

Stephen Tennant - a note on a scrap of paper

Found - a scrap of paper from a book on America maritime history - this note by the eccentric /decadent writer and artist Stephen Tennant (1906 -1987.) He often used pages of books for notes, poems, rants and observations. He made many hundreds of pages of notes for his projected novel Lascar; A Story of the Maritime Boulevard but it remained unfinished at his death. He produced a few slim volumes and some superb drawings. The writer mentioned is anonymous but being rich and eccentric and talented ST knew many writers including Willa Cather, Siegfried Sassoon (a former lover) V.S. Naipaul (a neighbour) and W.H. Auden (who praised one of his poems.) The scrap reads thus:-

There is no element or trait in human nature that a writer can ignore - But to give prominence to the Noble profound, to the calm, the wise, the Beautiful- the exquisite, the sacred is surely his proudest need? June 1976 S T

But he is no prude or evader of odious things.

Design for a cover for 'Lascar'

'Ah, Marseille, - c'set le Vrai.'
A writer said this a propos my novel Lascar.

Stephen Tennant's possessions were dispersed in a big Sotheby's sale at his home Wilsford Manor, Wiltshire in 1987.

This was bought there in a van full of books. Some of the books appeared to be scented, some had letters loosely inserted including one from Willa Cather. The catalogue itself

is sought after, at Ebay a copy recently made £100 although it is not uncommon...

ST with David Hockney at Wilsford Manor

Rare Decadence

From a catalogue from 2000, this very rare novel. There are less than a handful of decadent novels from the 1890s in English (plenty in French) and after Oscar Wilde and Marc Andre Raffalovich there is really only this novel published by the elusive Henry & Co., Try finding another copy! Recently it has been available as a P.O.D.

Langley, High. The Tides Ebb out to the Night; Being the Journal of a Young man - Basil Brooke- edited by his Friend Hugh Langley. (H. Henry, London 1896.) Full crimson buckram gilt lettered, ruled in blind, fore edges untrimmed.
8vo. vi,311pp. Highly uncommon decadent novel in the form of a journal and letters, showing an infatuation with French Symbolism. There are descriptions of decadent London rooms and a good deal of drug-taking including kif, ‘hasheesh’ and morphine to which the chief character becomes addicted, when his love affair with a young woman goes awry. The number of decadent English novels of this period is very small: this books appears unrecorded by any of the 90s bibliographies and, although highly accomplished, seems to have attracted very little notice in its day.

Capri in War Time (1918)

An article from the long defunct Anglo - Italian Review, October 1918. Edited by Edward Hutton, an English  Italophile who wrote several Italian travel books and featuring articles by Nobel Prize winner Grazia Deledda, Norman Douglas & Benedetto Croce. This piece is by one 'R.T.' an urbane writer, so far unrevealed**. Slancio means enthusiasm, abandon, élan...

If there are any spots on this earth which it is difficult to associate with war, surely Capri is one of them. To the imagination it must remain outside substantial horrors and continue the enchanted island which Shakespeare, as some think, chose as the scene of the Tempest; that 'island in the Bay of Naples' where Ferdinand and Miranda met and loved, and Caliban was teased by the dainty Ariel. And indeed in essentials Capri retains her enchantment. But yesterday, in the midst of an August calm, Prospero with a wave of his wand 'put the wild waters into a roar' and has now with a like magic allayed them. The news of the war seems far more like one of Ariel’s tricks than any incidents in the Tempest. The natural beauties of the island are accentuated by the diminution of artificial accessories. The moon shines with exceptional brightness in spite of regulations as to lighting. The summer flowers bloom with the usual luxuriance and the pergolas are heavy with the grapes. There is a same crush at the corner of the Caprese Fenchurch Street, namely the Piazza, where the people assemble for the arrival of the boat, now, indeed, only an evening occurrence and liable to interruption owing to the demand for tonnage.