Not only did "Against Nature" define an ideology and a literature, but it also created an influential perspective on visual art. The character of Des Esseintes explicitly heralded the work of Gustave Moreau, Jan Luyken and Odilon Redon. None of these artists would have identified themselves as part of this movement. Nevertheless, the choice of these three established a decadent perspective on art which favored madness and irrationality, graphic violence, frank pessimism about cultural institutions, and a disregard for visual logic of the natural world. It has been suggested that a dream vision that Des Esseintes describes is based on the series of satanic encounters painted by Félicien Rops.