Fernand Khnopff - The master of enigma

A rare artist, this Belgian master of Symbolism has not had a retrospective in Paris for nearly forty years. The exhibition brings together around one hundred emblematic examples of the complex aesthetic of Fernand Khnopff, who was a painter, draftsman, engraver, sculptor and the stage director of his personal work. The artist toys with themes, from portraits to dreamlike memories, from fantasy to the nude, and invites reverie and a meditation on identity. Khnopff's major works are counterpointed with those of artistic contemporaries, from Gustave Moreau to Klimt and Von Stuck, which allows situating him in the context of fin-de-siècle Europe. The exhibition design attempts to re-create the initiatory pathway of the false dwelling that served as his workshop, like the one in Stoclet Palace in Brussels, where Belgian and Viennese aesthetics encountered each other. Non-chronological, it presents instead the major themes that permeate Khnopff's work: from landscapes, portraits of children and reveries inspired by the Flemish Primitives to memories of Bruges-la-Morte and the complex use of photography, all the way to personal mythologies under the sign of Hypnos.
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