Editing Decadence (section)

===Ancient Rome===
{{main|Roman decadence}}
Decadence is a popular criticism of the culture of the [[later Roman Empire]]'s elites, seen also in much of its earlier [[historiography]] and 19th and early 20th century art depicting Roman life. This criticism describes the later [[Roman Empire]] as reveling in luxury, in its extreme characterized by corrupting "extravagance, weakness, and sexual deviance", as well as "orgies and sensual excesses".<ref>{{Citation |last=Hurst |first=Isobel |title=Nineteenth-Century Literary and Artistic Responses to Roman Decadence |date=22 August 2019 |work=Decadence and Literature |pages=47–65 |editor-last=Desmarais |editor-first=Jane H. |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/decadence-and-literature/86D3F82D0D84F5407FA07B37CC7641F8 |access-date=2021-07-24 |place=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-108-42624-4 |editor2-last=Weir |editor2-first=David}}.</ref><ref>{{Citation |last=Hoffleit |first=Gerald |title=Progress and Decadence—Poststructuralism as Progressivism |date=2014 |work=Decadence in Literature and Intellectual Debate since 1945 |pages=67–81 |editor-last=Landgraf |editor-first=Diemo |url=https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137431028_4 |access-date=2021-07-24 |place=New York |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan US|doi=10.1057/9781137431028_4 |isbn=978-1-137-43102-8|url-access=subscription }}.</ref><ref name="Farrington1994">{{cite book|author=Geoffrey Farrington|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=I3BoAAAAMAAJ|title=The Dedalus Book of Roman Decadence: Emperors of Debauchery|publisher=Dedalus|year=1994|isbn=978-1-873982-16-7}}</ref><ref name="House1996">{{cite book|author=Patrick M. House|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cq8IAQAAMAAJ|title=The Psychology of Decadence: The Portrayal of Ancient Romans in Selected Works of Russian Literature of the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries|publisher=University of Wisconsin—Madison|year=1996}}</ref><ref>{{Citation |last=Toner |first=Jerry |title=Decadence in Ancient Rome |date=2019 |work=Decadence and Literature |pages=15–29 |editor-last=Weir |editor-first=David |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/decadence-and-literature/decadence-in-ancient-rome/2E26F02C30B6896C842230FDA81F8FA1 |access-date=2021-07-24 |series=Cambridge Critical Concepts |place=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-108-42624-4 |editor2-last=Desmarais |editor2-first=Jane}}.</ref>{{excessive citations inline|date=January 2024}}
[[File:Heliogabalus High Priest of the Sun.jpg|thumb|''Heliogabalus, High Priest of the Sun'' by [[Simeon Solomon]] (1866)]]

==== Victorian-era artwork on Roman decadence ====
According to Professor [[Joseph Bristow (literary scholar)|Joseph Bristow]] of [[University of California, Los Angeles|UCLA]], decadence in Rome and the Victorian-era movement are connected through the idea of "decadent historicism."<ref name=":4">{{Cite journal |last=Bristow |first=Joseph |date=19 June 2020 |title=Decadent Historicism |url=http://journals.gold.ac.uk/index.php/volupte/article/view/1401/1515 |journal=Volupté|pages=1–27 Pages, 4MB |doi=10.25602/GOLD.V.V3I1.1401.G1515}}</ref> In particular, decadent historicism refers to the "interest among…1880s and 1890s writers in the enduring authority of perverse personas from the past" including the later Roman era.<ref name=":4" /> As such, Bristow's argument references how [[Elagabalus|Heliogabalus]], the title subject of [[Simeon Solomon]]'s painting ''Heliogabalus, High Priest of the Sun'' (1866), was "a decadent icon" for the Victorian movement.<ref name=":4" /> Bristow also notes that "[t]he image [of the painting] summons many qualities linked with [[Fin de siècle|fin-de-siècle]] decadence [alongside his]…queerness[,]" thus "inspir[ing] late-Victorian writers [as]…they…imagine anew sexual modernity."<ref name=":4" />
[[File:The Roses of Heliogabalus.jpg|thumb|''The Roses of Heliogabalus'' by [[Lawrence Alma-Tadema|Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema]] (1888)]]
Heliogabalus is also the subject of ''[[The Roses of Heliogabalus]]'' (1888) by [[Lawrence Alma-Tadema|Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema]], which, according to Professor [[Rosemary Barrow]], represents "the artist['s]…most glorious revel in Roman Decadence."<ref name=":5">{{Cite journal |last=Barrow |first=Rosemary |date=1997 |title=The Scent of Roses: Alma-Tadema and the Other Side of Rome |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/43636546 |journal=Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies |volume=42 |pages=183–202 |doi=10.1111/j.2041-5370.1998.tb00729.x |jstor=43636546 |issn=0076-0730|url-access=subscription }}</ref> To Barrow, "[t]he authenticity of the [scene]…perhaps had little importance for the artist[, meaning that] its appeal is the entertaining and extravagant vision it gives of later imperial Rome."<ref name=":5" /> Barrow also makes a point to mention "that Alma-Tadema’s Roman-subject paintings [tend to]…make use of historical, literary and archaeological sources" within themselves.<ref name=":5" /> Thus, the presence of roses within the painting as opposed to the original "'violets and other flowers'" of the source material emphasizes how "the Roman world…h[eld] extra connotations of revelry and luxuriant excess" about them.<ref name=":5" />