Abstract EN:

In the history of art criticism, the symbolist period marks a turning point: previously simple commentary, critical discourse becomes poetical recreation. The work of art could even be said to be truly accomplished or surpassed in the critical work. Symbolist criticism thus stakes a claim to the realisation of the essence of art criticism which, unlike literary criticism, has the task of transforming the written word into visual sensation, of creating an image through discourse. In the hierarchy of the arts, pictorial criticism, the synaesthetic art of the synthesis of the arts, emerges as the supreme form. As a resymbolisation of the pictorial work, it is defined by a subject which is itself symbolic and takes the poetical symbol to its highest level of purity. Wilde, who follows in baudelaire's footsteps; mallarme, who brings about major change by placing the symbol at the heart of art criticism; symons, who introduces mallarme to an english readership; huysmans and moore, who combine criticism and the novel: these are the writers at the centre of this study.