Artists and their audiences often felt estranged from society, mocking traditional moral rules and embracing sensualism and morbidity to scandalize the "bourgeois" middle class.
Sigmund Freud , whose emerging theories mirror the era's preoccupation with hidden urges and the subconscious. Decadent Subjects: The Idea of Decadence in Art...
The text connects Freudian theories—such as the death drive , hysteria, and sexual identity—to the artistic phenomena of the late 19th century. Artists and their audiences often felt estranged from