This study, first published in 1986, is an examination of the many
facets of Mallarmés relationship to the visual arts. Dr Florence
proceeds by analysing Mallarmés writing on painting and literature, and
its bearing on specific paintings, lithographs, and poems. These
analyses reveal and define important common structures and innovatory
developments, the coherence of which is masked by conventional histories
of art. A new relationship is revealed between the word and the image,
which has significant implications for an understanding of the self and
the world in these texts. The book is particularly original in two
respects: first, it shows how developments in verbal and visual
innovation are interdependent in Mallarmés work; second, it integrates
hitherto discrete traditions of the avant-garde in painting to present a
new perspective on the history of modernism.