Identity:

Charles Marie Georges ('Joris Karl') Huysmans was an author, poet and critic.

Life:

Huysmans was a French novelist and critic, initially a follower of Zola, later a symbolist and a devout Roman Catholic. He is mainly remembered for A Rebours, with its protagonist des Esseintes, who pursues an extreme aesthetic and decadent life style. His art criticism is collected in L'Art Moderne (1883), and Certains (1889), the latter including an essay on JW.

Bibliography:

http://www.getty.edu/research (accessed 2003); Baldick, Robert, The Life of J.-K. Huysmans, Oxford, 1955; Monneret, S., L'Impressionisme et son époque, Paris, 1978-79.