DOI issue:
No. 237 (December 1912)
DOI article:Laillet, Hélène: The home of an artist: M. Fernand Khnopff's villa at Brussels
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21158#0227
M. Fernand Khnopff's Villa
ANOTHER VIEW OK M. FERNAND KHNOPFF’S PRINCIPAL STUDIO WITH THE ALTAR TO HYPNOS OPPOSITE THE STEPS
difficult to interpret the artist’s meaning. Looking
at these drawings so admirably finished, one merely
says : “ They are very beautiful.” What more could
one say? But mentally one raises the mask of
lofty reserve and before these eyes, sad, grave, or
ardent, wide-open or half-closed, before these ex-
pressive mouths with lips thin and compressed or
half-opened and eager, before these smiles hopeless
or tender, one experiences the most subtle emotions
that the arts—sculpture, painting, or engraving—
can produce when they express at the same time
both sorrow and happiness. The face is always
the same yet always different; it is a face which
exercises a powerful fascination because, though
very human, it possesses something vaguely super-
natural. A lady who visited the artist once asked
him this question : “ Should you meet this woman
whose face seems to haunt you, would you marry
her?” “On no account,” was the artist’s reply.
“ I know too well what she has in her mind.”
The adjoining room is a second studio and
contains the works in course of execution. On an
easel rests a very fine portrait, already in an ad-
vanced stage, of the Due de Brabant, which the
artist will finish when the young prince returns
from his holidays. Two engravings on marble
intended for the residence of M. Stoclet promise,
by the perfection of the design, the attitude
of the symbolic figures, and by the fineness
ok the workmanship, to rank among the artist’s
greatest works. In this room, too, are the cartoons
which Khnopff in the role of “ scene-painter ” has
made for the scenery of certain operas. Thanks
to his refined and artistic taste there are in the
Theatre de la Monnaie at Brussels costumes and
stage-effects of the most remarkable beauty. He
applied all his energies to the production of such
works as “ Le Roi Arthur ” and “ Oberon,” and
once more the directors of the theatre have ap-
pealed to his brilliant imagination and his clever
205
ANOTHER VIEW OK M. FERNAND KHNOPFF’S PRINCIPAL STUDIO WITH THE ALTAR TO HYPNOS OPPOSITE THE STEPS
difficult to interpret the artist’s meaning. Looking
at these drawings so admirably finished, one merely
says : “ They are very beautiful.” What more could
one say? But mentally one raises the mask of
lofty reserve and before these eyes, sad, grave, or
ardent, wide-open or half-closed, before these ex-
pressive mouths with lips thin and compressed or
half-opened and eager, before these smiles hopeless
or tender, one experiences the most subtle emotions
that the arts—sculpture, painting, or engraving—
can produce when they express at the same time
both sorrow and happiness. The face is always
the same yet always different; it is a face which
exercises a powerful fascination because, though
very human, it possesses something vaguely super-
natural. A lady who visited the artist once asked
him this question : “ Should you meet this woman
whose face seems to haunt you, would you marry
her?” “On no account,” was the artist’s reply.
“ I know too well what she has in her mind.”
The adjoining room is a second studio and
contains the works in course of execution. On an
easel rests a very fine portrait, already in an ad-
vanced stage, of the Due de Brabant, which the
artist will finish when the young prince returns
from his holidays. Two engravings on marble
intended for the residence of M. Stoclet promise,
by the perfection of the design, the attitude
of the symbolic figures, and by the fineness
ok the workmanship, to rank among the artist’s
greatest works. In this room, too, are the cartoons
which Khnopff in the role of “ scene-painter ” has
made for the scenery of certain operas. Thanks
to his refined and artistic taste there are in the
Theatre de la Monnaie at Brussels costumes and
stage-effects of the most remarkable beauty. He
applied all his energies to the production of such
works as “ Le Roi Arthur ” and “ Oberon,” and
once more the directors of the theatre have ap-
pealed to his brilliant imagination and his clever
205