Editing Fin de siècle (section)

==Artistic conventions==
[[File:Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, At the Moulin Rouge.jpg|thumb|''[[At the Moulin Rouge]]'' (1895), a painting by [[Henri Toulouse-Lautrec]] that captures the vibrant and decadent spirit of society during the fin de siècle]]
The works of the Decadents and the [[Aesthetes]] contain the hallmarks typical of fin de siècle art. Holbrook Jackson's ''The Eighteen Nineties'' describes the characteristics of English decadence, which are: perversity, artificiality, egoism, and curiosity.<ref name="Goldfarb, Russel"/> The first trait is the concern for the perverse, unclean, and unnatural.<ref name="Hambrook, Glyn" /> [[Romanticism]] encouraged audiences to view physical traits as indicative of one's inner self, whereas the fin de siècle artists accepted beauty as the basis of life, and so valued that which was not conventionally beautiful.<ref name="Goldfarb, Russel"/>

[[File:The Scream.jpg|thumb|''[[The Scream]]'' (1893), an [[Expressionism|expressionist]] [[painting]] by [[Edvard Munch]], is a prominent cultural symbol of the fin de siècle era.<ref>West, Shearer. ''Fin de Siecle: Art and Society in an Age of Uncertainty''. Overlook Press.</ref>]]
This belief in beauty in the abject leads to the obsession with artifice and symbolism, as artists rejected ineffable ideas of beauty in favour of the abstract.<ref name="Goldfarb, Russel"/> Through symbolism, aesthetes could evoke sentiments and ideas in their audience without relying on an infallible general understanding of the world.<ref name="What Is Fin de Siecle"/>

The third trait of the culture is [[Egocentrism|egoism]], a term similar to that of "egomania", meaning disproportionate attention placed on one's own endeavours. This can result in a type of alienation and anguish, as in Baudelaire's case, and demonstrates how aesthetic artists chose cityscapes over country as a result of their aversion to the natural.<ref name="Hambrook, Glyn"/>

Finally, curiosity is identifiable through diabolism and the exploration of the evil or immoral, focusing on the morbid and macabre, but without imposing any moral lessons on the audience.<ref name="Goldfarb, Russel"/><ref name="Quintus, John Allen"/>