Students of polymorphous perversity should consider having this book the equivalent of a lifetime membership in an illustrated encyclopedia in artistic themes which use women as a prop. The Index (pp. 429-453) provides page numbers for locating the works of particular artists and the occasional mention of a book like ALICE IN WONDERLAND (Carroll). Great thinkers like Freud, Nietzsche, and Mark Twain are mentioned less than a snake biting its tail: Uroboros, as feminine principle, is covered in nine places on 14 pages, mostly on and between pages 128-148. Charles Darwin, Darwinism, and Social Darwinism crop up more often, but hardly as much as Mythology.

Back in 1986, when Oxford University Press published the first edition, there were economic reasons for having all the pictures in black and white. I prefer color myself, but there is an illustration, VIII, 11. Andrea Carlo Lucchesi (1860-1924), "The Myrtle's Altar," sculpture (ca. 1891) which appears to be about half marble precariously perched above a crown and a necklace containing a crucifix dangling alongside a tree trunk in which the marble portion of the picture is so white and striking that anything which drew attention to the portions of the picture which appear to be a drab gray on page 252 would merely detract from the incredible stare which changes her posture from a form of pouting withdrawal to some serpentine potential to strike:

The eyes of Lucchesi's young lady, snakelike and piercing, are no longer turned inward but display a hypnotic, aggressive quality. She sizes up the (male) viewer with a licentious intensity calculated to produce in him, in Max Nordau's words, "the morbid state of degeneracy which renders a man a woman's plaything and the victim of his own temperament" (Paradoxes, 258).

I am quoting from Bram Dijkstra's book, IDOLS OF PERVERSITY / FANTASIES OF FEMININE EVIL IN FIN-DE-SIECLE CULTURE, page 252, just under the picture. In addition to comments by critics of those times, the book has some examples of the poems written by painters expressing their feelings about their subjects. The poem "Aspecta Medusa" by Dante Gabriel Rossetti was meant to accompany a drawing which does not appear on page 137 where nine lines of the poem appear. The book is organized into eleven topics on grand schemes that frequently mention pictures which are not shown. It does not seem likely that anyone would be able to see everything by looking at the books in the Bibliography, which has sources quoted on pages 403-410, Exhibition Catalogues, Periodicals, and a further series of nonfiction texts on pp. 411-424 including four works by Freud and three volumes (actually containing four titles of published works) by Nietzsche.

That Freud and Nietzsche get so little attention in this book tends to draw our attention away from intellectual slavery to a fixed system and allow an appreciation of the incredibly diverse richness of the ideas available for discussion in a culture that did not adhere to rigid political boundaries, though ideals involving men and women tended to involve great simplifications, even then.

As a few of the other reviewers have observed, this is a visual treat served up by a crusading cretin. Well, he's obviously not a cretin, but after the scattergun insults he's hurled at so many of his subjects, it seems only right to answer for these unjustly damned dead folk in kind. Sorry, but the author of this hasn't earnt the right to start patronising past masters, at least certainly not judging by this.

This is feminism as conspiracy theory, the portrayal of culture as sex war, and it's joyless nonsense. The imagery in question is often exotic and edgy - but that's what interesting art does. If Dijkstra understood the art he castigates so energetically - chiefly Decadence - then he might begin to see the argument that perhaps beauty and pleasure are legitimate ends in their own right. Which is surely better than this ideological axe-grinding.

I'm afraid I have to disagree with those who praise the quality of the research in 'Idols of Perversity'. The author leans heavily on a couple of slender sources which are clearly pretty radical for their day as if they show the misogynist character of an entire era. We could use the SCUM Manifesto to portray all women as homicidal loons. But most of us are a little more grown up than that and just laugh at it, as I did with this. Women portrayed powerfully are 'demonised', women not portrayed powerfully are being repressed. Apparently. If any of his subjects fail to provide visuals or commentary to support his screed, Bram happily 'knows' what they were thinking anyhow.

I reluctantly recommend this. Five stars for the lavish - and frequently rare - imagery. One for the politically-correct propagandising - an average of three with one on top for giggles. If you enjoy Symbolist or Decadent art, do buy it, but also look out for the out-of-print 'Dreamers of Decadence' which covers the same area and with more appreciation and less sanctimonious baggage.

I don't know how this qualifies as a direct written review, but I was so inspired by this book when I first read it at least 10 years ago, (I've reread it a few times each year in between) that for at least 10 years, greatly in part as a gesture of gratitude to Mr. Dijkstra, I have anxiously been working to compliment the fine research of Mr. Dijkstra by "re-illustrating" it with contemporary images from "this past century." He has been an inspiration to me, I hope he will be impressed with my gesture. (From one century into this next, -More from me later!) Pepe Paras

I read this book several years ago and to put it simply, it shook up my perceptions about the imagery used in art during that time. Suddenly I saw these beautiful, lithesome, sinuous or passive figures of women as statements of deep-seated fears and misperceptions about women and non-white, non-Anglo Saxon Europeans during that era. It is an important study.

This is the sort of book that can only be the product of decades of passionate interest, study and research -- a once in an author's lifetime effort. I leaned heavily on the big shoulders of this brilliant study in the research for the second chapter of my book, COMPLICATED WOMEN. Dijkstra has seen every painting from the 19th century and has understood them. The book is lavishly illustrated. It's all written with wit and liveliness. This is not a dry book at all. I was enormously impressed and recommend it to anyone interested in art or women's studies -- or in having a new world revealed.