DOI Heft:
No. 12 (March, 1894)
DOI Artikel:Sparrow, Walter Shaw: English art and M. Fernand Khnopff
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.17189#0219
English Art and M. Fernand Khnopff
chair, and never till a few weeks ago (1831) have by his earliest efforts, was essentially what it is to-
I had a leaning-place put for my head. If sur- day when our pre-Raphaelites were wholly unknown
rounded by convenient tasteful furniture, my to him. That he now admires them greatly I
thoughts are absorbed, and I am placed in an
agreeable but passive state. Unless we are accus-
tomed to them from early youth, splendid rooms
and elegant furniture are for people who neither
have nor can have any thoughts."
Altogether, one hopes that Fernand Khnopff
will avoid luxurious surroundings with a dislike
akin to that which the devil is reputed to enter-
tain for holy water.
Mr. Broadley says, in a paragraph which I have
not quoted, that Fernand Khnopff " has followed
in the paths trodden by Burne-Jones and Ford
Madox Brown." Now this is tantamount to saying
that he is a disciple of Burne-Jones and Ford
Madox Brown. And yet his style, as is proved
A BOOK-PLATE ("EX LIBRIS "), BY FERNAND KHNOPFF
admit; and it would be absurd to say that he has
not been influenced by the decorative beauty of
the work of Mr. Burne-Jones. But I do fail to
recognise in his art anything at all suggestive of
the inner essence and the life of that work. There
is in fact in his character, his intellect, an old
Flemish ruggedness that will ever prevent his
painting either such sad-eyed women as could
never be mothers, or such delicate and refined
knights as put on their armour because they
happened to remember that roses have thorns.
Of the illustrations to this paper little need be
said, for they will speak adequately for themselves.
The large one—An Angel Meeting with Animalism
—touches a social problem that saddens us in
our city. The angel's figure is somewhat too tall,
but his little face, is not that a world of kindly
melancholy and divine pity ? The two designs for
book-plates have an interest of their own, and show
types which are unlike the majority of those
appearing from time to time in the pages of The
Studio. The pastel drawing is reproduced the
xJt same size as the original, which is worked in simple
\ colours, not superimposed and hardly shaded into
each other. This convention, which is especially
adapted for colour-printing by process, is not often
— ' »~.«^» adopted, yet it has a peculiar charm of its own
_-,,rrV imn " thf crnnin" that a reproduction in black and white is unable
FROM A BUST. DRAWN SPECIALLY FOR THE bTUDIO 1 _
by the artist to convey. W. Shaw Sparrow.
207
Qj
chair, and never till a few weeks ago (1831) have by his earliest efforts, was essentially what it is to-
I had a leaning-place put for my head. If sur- day when our pre-Raphaelites were wholly unknown
rounded by convenient tasteful furniture, my to him. That he now admires them greatly I
thoughts are absorbed, and I am placed in an
agreeable but passive state. Unless we are accus-
tomed to them from early youth, splendid rooms
and elegant furniture are for people who neither
have nor can have any thoughts."
Altogether, one hopes that Fernand Khnopff
will avoid luxurious surroundings with a dislike
akin to that which the devil is reputed to enter-
tain for holy water.
Mr. Broadley says, in a paragraph which I have
not quoted, that Fernand Khnopff " has followed
in the paths trodden by Burne-Jones and Ford
Madox Brown." Now this is tantamount to saying
that he is a disciple of Burne-Jones and Ford
Madox Brown. And yet his style, as is proved
A BOOK-PLATE ("EX LIBRIS "), BY FERNAND KHNOPFF
admit; and it would be absurd to say that he has
not been influenced by the decorative beauty of
the work of Mr. Burne-Jones. But I do fail to
recognise in his art anything at all suggestive of
the inner essence and the life of that work. There
is in fact in his character, his intellect, an old
Flemish ruggedness that will ever prevent his
painting either such sad-eyed women as could
never be mothers, or such delicate and refined
knights as put on their armour because they
happened to remember that roses have thorns.
Of the illustrations to this paper little need be
said, for they will speak adequately for themselves.
The large one—An Angel Meeting with Animalism
—touches a social problem that saddens us in
our city. The angel's figure is somewhat too tall,
but his little face, is not that a world of kindly
melancholy and divine pity ? The two designs for
book-plates have an interest of their own, and show
types which are unlike the majority of those
appearing from time to time in the pages of The
Studio. The pastel drawing is reproduced the
xJt same size as the original, which is worked in simple
\ colours, not superimposed and hardly shaded into
each other. This convention, which is especially
adapted for colour-printing by process, is not often
— ' »~.«^» adopted, yet it has a peculiar charm of its own
_-,,rrV imn " thf crnnin" that a reproduction in black and white is unable
FROM A BUST. DRAWN SPECIALLY FOR THE bTUDIO 1 _
by the artist to convey. W. Shaw Sparrow.
207
Qj