Monday, May 22, 2023

And there you are

I don't pretend to know all that much about French Symbolism as a movement. I can think of two artists associated with it: James Ensor and Felicien Rops. As it happens they were both Belgian.



Symbolism does seem to have been at the vanguard of modern art's penchant for odd and sometimes disturbing images, decades before Surrealism proper. 

The image above is Rops's Lady with a Puppet, and could be considered a subtle example of that. The woman herself is normal, notably buxom. Her puppet is a standard Pulcinella type. But if you look closely the cloth on the table where she sits seems to have a face, and most definitely has eyes. A sign, perhaps, that things are always being manipulated beyond those that you know about.

Anyway, maybe one of these days I'll do Ensor.

2 comments:

susan said...

Never having heard of Felicien Rops previously, seeing his work on wikipedia was quite the revelation for me. I don't think I've seen such a large gallery of anyone's art on wiki. You're absolutely correct in describing his images as being odd or even disturbing. Yet the list of people who had him illustrate their books was very impressive. Their names alone suggest the exotic: Beaudelaire, Verlaine and Voltaire.

I found myself wondering if Edward Gorey might have been influenced by the images of Rops. Perhaps he was part of it for Gorey was eccentric and was very much involved in illustrating unsettling narrative scenes.

It was thoughtful of you to publish this one image rather than some of his others. It's an excellent example of his talent but it's also a very intriguing picture. Yes, I noticed the face in the tablecloth.

Ben said...

Your right that Wikipedia has a very extensive collection of his art up on their site. And I also just took a look at the pictures from Les Sataniques. In a later era he could have been a successful metal album cover artitst. I mean, he wouldn't make any money because the record companies would keep going bankrupt before they paid him, but he'd be quite well known. Of course as it is he got a chance to illustrate some great books, so why dwell on what could have been?

I don't know if Gorey ever talked about his influences publicly. Rops could certainly be among them. He was really one of the great ones. "If you're doing nonsense it has to be rather awful, because there'd be no point." True.

I kind of prefer his more subtle works, and I'm not too surprised you do as well. As for the face in the tablecloth, it seemed to me that you'd probably notice it if it weren't a figment of my imagination.