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The Belgian Painters (2)

FÉLICIEN ROPS

1833-1898

L'Attrapade (Scolding) >> [painting of ROPS]

Félicien Rops had a great talent to express in drawings the sins and perversions of all levels of the society of the 19th century. Sometimes pushed to caricatures, but always right to the point, the humanity revealed in his works is not beautified.
Drawing, pencil, lead, pastel, watercolor, engraving were all techniques skillfully utilized by Rops besides oil paintings.

A SATANIC STYLE...
Félicien Rops, born in Namur (city in the south of Belgium) spent the heights of his artistic career in France, mainly in Paris. An important part of his works was devoted to illustration of books, collaborating with the best French poets and writers of his time: Baudelaire, Mallarmé, Verlaine, Maupassant, the Goncourts... and many others. These now sought after editions were ornated by frontispieces or plates designed by Rops, some of them in large format and full colors.
Rops had also a gift for designing poster-like prints in lithography. An important part of his works for books and posters was socially aggressive, provocative and displaying open eroticism. Women of all classes and all activities are present in a great part of his production. He was manipulating a certain vulgarity to obtain the shock effect in the viewer, his drawings acting like a kind of mirror of the soul and unconscious. Rops was not well accepted by the mainstream bourgeoisie of this mid 19th century, characterized by its bigotry, hypocrisy, and stone hard soul for the total misery of the lower classes. Rops, belonging to this bourgeoisie, was exactly the contrary of all that and his work was often somber, his humor being of the acid "noir" genre.
But he was a successful artist, esteemed by his peers.
Except for Belgium itself and a minority of connoisseurs outside the country, the 20th century did not put Rops at the level he belongs to; this is probably the result of a certain censorship against his work that came fully in action after his death, putting him in the "enfer" (hell) of libraries and galleries. It is changing, and Félicien Rops is coming back to the top position he deserves in the European graphic and visual arts.

ROPS: SOURCE OF INSPIRATION FOR TOULOUSE-LAUTREC
His techniques and subjects were certainly one of the sources that inspired Toulouse-Lautrec. The inner force of the scenes and characters he depicted is still acting on the feelings of the modern viewers.
The black and white rendition in : "L'Enterrement en Pays Wallon" (The Funeral in the Walloon Country) is a masterpiece for simple clear drawing and composition, colorful drawings like the well-known serie tittled "La tentation de Saint Antoine" (The Temptation of Saint Antony) are all proofs of the talent of this great artist.

TO KNOW MORE ABOUT ROPS...

Musée Félicien Rops- Namur
A very good site in English (French available as well) describing the works and techniques of Rops; comments from letters and writings of Rops himself- Organized by the museum dedicated to his works in Namur(Rops' hometown)

FERNAND KHNOPFF

1858-1921

BELGIAN SYMBOLISM

This "painter for painters" is certainly well known by all the followers of Modern Art, as one of the best representative of the symbolism movement.
Khnopff was a precursor in many ways, bordering surrealism before the word was even existing. But he was one of the great painters of the symbolism period in Europe, when all arts were influenced by the movement: painting, literature, poetry, sculpture.
In reaction against the realistic and populist inspirations that invaded art during the second half of the 19th century, and also in reaction against the "Art for Art" (esthetism being the only goal), the symbolists where expressing the feelings of the soul and of the intellect in elaborated settings.

Sphinx - painting

In graphical arts, the result was a clear distanciation between the seen drawing and the full intentions of the author that needed the elaboration of the intellect to apprehend and the feeling of the soul to capture totally the unconscient essence of the work.
Most of the time the drawing was esthetically appealing and the construction very complex and refined in the details. Colors were used to accentuate the symbols, and by this re-enforcing the distanciation of the image from the underneath feelings embedded by the author. The general sentiment created was often unreal, while the essential parts of the drawing were mostly realistic.

Khnopff was a master in the rendition of feeling of emptiness, by his treatment of space in his drawings. The resulting effect was often close to surrealism and fantastic art[see above painting]

He was a source of influence for Gustav Klimt, the famous Austrian painter of the Art Nouveau, that found in Khnopff the ethereal treatment of feminine portrait and a sure instinct for the use of colors to enforce the effects.Manierism was from Klimt himself!

The WEB is very poor in real resources to document the life and works of Khnopff. You will have to find other sources to check for the fascinating beauty of Khnopff's masterpieces such as: Un Masque au Manteau Blanc (Mask with white Coat), Portrait de Demoiselle Van der Echt (Miss Van der Echt's Portrait), Sphynx and many others.

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