Examining the mutual relationship between literature and the visual arts in the Fin de siècle the study explores the literary adaptation of ornamental style and the emergence of a specifically modern type of hermetic communication. Abundant intertextual references and allusions contribute to the suggestiveness and subtlety of aestheticist literature, which fascinated modern readers like Simmel, Cassirer and Adorno. Thus, in contrast to a common prejudice against aestheticism, its enthusiastic reception among modern cultural theorists reveals the lasting interest of Fin de siècle poetics in the 20th century.