Excerpts from: Joséphin Péladan L'Art Idealiste et Mystique (Doctrine de l'Ordre et du Salon Annuel du Rose + Croix), 1894.

"Between devotion and magic, there is a median concept; subtler than sensations, more ethereal than ideas, it is the sentiment and flavour of the divine, that I call Aristie...

Aestheticism is the art of sensing God in things; and he who is able to experience this sentiment is the one I name Ariste, this signifies the most excellent, the best. As matter ascends, so aestheticism becomes the theology of the heart and of vibrations, and so I return this common and profaned matter to its sublime heights..."

~Joséphin Péladan, Comment on Devient Ar(t)iste, p. 6.

Introduction a l'ésthetique 11-14

“I judge what (the artist) makes me see... When is reality beautiful? And what is beauty? Reality is beautiful when it manifests the inner idea that exists inside us.... Titian's so-called mistress at the Salon Carré, realises our inner concept of a desirable woman. The Gioconda represents a much less precise theme: she does not correspond to lust: she excites our imagination; her spiritual charm dominates us : and in pleasing, represents a pleasure of pride. On the same picture rail, Rembrandt's Saskia gazes at us, without exciting our sexuality, nor our imagination.