My obsession with Belgian illustrator Félicien Rops has abated a little since the time I made a pilgrimage to his hometown of Namur. But there’s no denying the power of his enchantingly sulphurous, ecstatically blasphemous, morbidly obscene and (particularly early on) surprisingly sentimental works. Rops represented a personal and creative link between Baudelaire, whom he knew, and the later, overlapping movements of Decadence and Symbolism. He excelled in the medium of etching, and these examples – which represent a summary of his thematic preoccupations – all date from the first half of the 1890s, when Rops lived near Paris in a ménage à trois with two sisters.
He was a fascinating man
And quite the looker early on, as well!
Ah, thank you for reminding me of him! I was eventually sold on his art when I saw some of his prints (Or coloured etches? I don’t remember.) in this grand (Belgian) Symbolist exhibition two years ago in Brussels.
Glad to have jogged your memory!
Reblogged this on Árbol Estelar.
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