Fernand Khnopff (1858 - 1921). Fernand Edmond Jean Marie Khnopff was a symbolist Belgian painter. Fernand Khnopff was born to a wealthy family that was part of the high bourgeoisie for generations. Khnopff's ancestors had lived in the Vossenhoek area of Grembergen Flanders since the early 17th century but were of Austrian and Portuguese descent. Most male members of his family had been lawyers or judges, and young Fernand was destined for a juridical career. In his early childhood, he lived in Bruges where his father was appointed Substitut Du Procureur Du Roi. His childhood memories of the medieval city of Bruges would play a significant role in his later work. In 1864, the family moved to Brussels. In his childhood Khnopff spent part of his summer holidays in the hamlet of Tillet not so far from Bastogne in the Luxemburg province where his maternal grandparents owned an estate. He painted several views of this village. To please his parents, he went to law school at the Free University of Brussels when he was 18 years old. During this period, he developed a passion for literature, discovering the works of Baudelaire, Flaubert, Leconte de Lisle and other mostly French authors. With his younger brother Georges Khnopff-also a passionate amateur of contemporary music and poetry-he started to frequent Jeune Belgique, a group of young writers including Max Waller, Georges Rodenbach, Iwan Gilkin and Emile Verhaeren. Khnopff left University due to a lack of interest in his law studies and began to frequent the studio of Xavier Mellery, who made him familiar with the art of painting. On 25 October 1876, he enrolled for the Cours De Dessin Apres Nature at the Academie Royale des Beaux-Arts. At the Academie, his most famous fellow student was James Ensor, whom he disliked from the start. Between 1877 and 1880, Khnopff made several trips to Paris where he discovered the work of Delacroix, Ingres, Moreau and Stevens. At the Paris World Fair of 1878 he became acquainted with the oeuvre of Millais and Burne-Jones. During his last year at the Academie in 1878-1879 he neglected his classes in Brussels and lived for a while in Passy, where he visited the Cours Libres of Jules Joseph Lefebvre at the Academie Julian. In 1881, he presented his works to the public for the first time at the Salon de l'Essor in Brussels. The critics' appraisal of his work is very harsh, with the exception of Emile Verhaeren who wrote a commending review. Verhaeren would remain a lifelong supporter and would write the first monograph on the painter. In 1883, Khnopff was one of the founding members of the group Le Groupe des XX. Khnopff exhibited regularly at the annual Salon organised by Les XX.In 1885, he met the French writer Josephin Peladan the future grandmaster of the Rosicrucian Ordre de la Rose + Croix. Peladan asked Khnopff to design the cover for his new novel Le Vice supreme. Khnopff accepted this commission but destroyed the work later because the famous soprano Rose Caron was offended by the imaginary portrait of Leonora d'Este that Khnopff had designed to adorn the cover and in which Caron thought to recognise her own face. The vehement reaction of La Caron on this occasion made a scandal in the Belgian and Parisian press and would help to establish Khnopff's name as an artist. Khnopff continued to design illustrations for the works of Peladan, most notably for Femmes honnetes and Le Panthee. On several occasions Khnopff was invited as guest of honour on the exhibitions of the Parisian Salon de la Rose + Croix organised by Peladan. In 1889, Khnopff laid his first contacts with England, where he would stay and exhibit regularly in the future. British artists such as Hunt, Watts, Rossetti, Brown and Burne-Jones would become friends. From 1895 Khnopff worked as a correspondent for the British art journal The Studio. Until the outbreak of World War I in 1914 Khnopff would be responsible for the rubric Studio-Talks-Brussels in which he reported about the artistic evolutions in Belgium and continental Europe. In March 1898 Khnopff presented a selection of 21 works on the first exhibition of the Vienna Secession. In Vienna his work was received with massive admiration. The works he presented at the Secession would form a major influence on the oeuvre of Gustav Klimt. From 1900 onwards, Khnopff was engaged in the design of his new home and studio in Brussels. The house was inspired by the Vienna Secession and more in particular by the architecture of Joseph Maria Olbrich. To the sober architecture and decoration Khnopff added a highly symbolic, spatial and decorative concept that turned his home into a Temple of the self. The house functioned as a shrine in which the genius of the painter could flourish.
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