Said the Spider to the Fly: The Triumph of the Minor in Octave Mirbeau’s In the Sky

Abstract

In the Sky (1892–1893), by Mirbeau (1848–1917), is a tale of a docile and insecure writer’s friendship with a devilish painter who degenerates into an inhuman creature. Written by an avid defender of revolutionary painters such as Claude Monet, Auguste Rodin and Vincent van Gogh, on whom In the Sky is based, the novella reveals the interdependent relationship between writing and painting as well as the close proximity between genius and animality. Nettleton argues that in its comparison between avant-gardists and nonhuman creatures, the novella affirms the power of animals as minor, creative entities. Mirbeau’s philosophy of art as an organic process that evolves and transforms echoes Darwinian and Lamarckian beliefs. Mirbeau suggests that, like microorganisms that develop and evolve into more complex creatures, drops of paint on the canvas “evolve” into a painting (Mirbeau 1989, 92). He thus diminishes the importance of the author or the painter of a creative work.