Frantisek Kupka, The Yellow Scale (Self-Portrait), 1907
Iâm not ashamed to say that I bought Joris-Karl Huysmansâs
Against Nature because of the cover: Frantisek Kupkaâs
The
Yellow Scale (Self-Portrait) from 1907 is an exhilarating study of the color yellow. Its human subject, slouched in a wicker armchair, a cigarette dangling from one hand while a single, louche finger marks the page of a book, could be the perfect image of Des Esseintes, the dissolute antihero of Huysmansâs novel. Strictly speaking, the painting is a self-portrait of the habitually mustached Kupka, but it bears more than a passing resemblance to Charles Baudelaire, who haunts almost every page of