Félicien Rops facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Félicien Rops
Detail from The Members of the Société Libre des Beaux-Arts by Edmond Lambrichs
Born	(1833-07-07)7 July 1833 Namur, Belgium
Died	23 August 1898(1898-08-23) (aged 65) Essonnes, France
Nationality	Belgian
Known for	Print making, intaglio, illustrations, drawing, painting
Notable work	Pornocrates Les Sataniques Les Diaboliques
Movement	Symbolism, Decadent movement, Fin de siècle

Félicien Victor Joseph Rops (7 July 1833 – 23 August 1898) was a Belgian artist. He was a painter, illustrator, caricaturist and a prolific and innovative print maker. Although not well known to the general public, Rops was greatly respected by his peers and actively pursued and celebrated as an illustrator by the publishers, authors, and poets of his time. Rops is recognized as a pioneer of Belgian comics.

Biography

Childhood and education (1833–1857)

Rops was born 7 July 1833 in Namur, Belgium, the only child of Sophie Maubile and Nicholas Rops. The Rops were a well-off bourgeois family, their wealth coming from textile manufacturing. Félicien was educated at his home by private tutors until the age of ten; then in 1843, he enrolled in a local Jesuit school for the next five years. His ability to recite lengthy passages from the Bible in Latin attest to both a good education and his intelligence, although even as a schoolboy it is reported that he had "begun to let fantasy dominate his thinking" and received complaints about "his passion for producing uninhibited caricatures of his teachers". Nicholas Rops died in 1849. After some disagreements between Rops and his mother over the direction of his future education, a compromise was reached, and in June 1849 he enrolled at the Athénée secondary school in Namur while simultaneously attending the Academy of Fine Arts there.

In 1851, Rops moved to Brussels and began studying law at the University of Brussels. However, by 1853, he was attending the Académie de Saint-Luc where he studied drawing and developed his skill as a draughtsman working from live models, meeting others like Louis Artan, Constantin Meunier, and Charles de Groux, and taking part in the local Bohemian milieu. It was at this time that he began contributing caricatures, cartoons, and satirical lithographs to student magazines, in particular Le Crocodile which brought him some notoriety. In 1856, Rops, along with Victor Hallaux (pseudonym Victor de la Hesbaye) and Charles De Coster progressed from student magazines to founding their own journal, The Uylenspiegel, a weekly artistic and literary satirical review to which he contributed one or two lithographs an issue, more than 180 total, furthering his reputation.

Early career in Belgium, and marriage (1857–1870)

Felicien Rops in his Studio by Paul Mathey.

In June 1857, Rops married Charlotte Polet de Faveaux, the daughter of a wealthy magistrate and owner of Thozée Castle (see external links below) in the countryside near the town of Mettet, Belgium. For the first few years at Thozée, Rops enjoyed a comfortable life of a country gentlemen, pursuing passions for painting, botany, and even founding a rowing club in 1862, the Royal Nautical Club of Sambre and Meuse. He spoke highly of his father-in-law in his letters. Rops and his wife had a son, Paul, in 1858, and a daughter, Juliet, in 1859, who died at the age of five. Rops relinquished his managerial roll at Uylenspiegel but continued contributing cartoons and illustrations until 1862. He began to explore etching and produced political lithographs, occasional caricatures and cartoons for magazines, and frontispieces and illustrations for books. He illustrated a number of De Coster's books including Légendes Flamandes (1858), Contes Brabançons (1861) and La Légende d'Uylenspiegel ('Tijl Uilenspiegel', 1867). His home became a gathering place for artists, writers, publishers and friends. The Société Libre des Beaux-Arts (Free Society of Fine Arts) in Brussels was founded in 1868 and Rops served as Vice-President for several years. By the 1860s, Rops was traveling extensively and dividing his time between Thozée Castle, Namur, Brussels, and Paris each year; with ever extending time in Paris at the center of the art and literary world, and ever decreasing time at Thozée Castle and Namur with his wife and family as the decade passed.

In 1862, he studied etching with Félix Bracquemond and Jules Ferdinand Jacquemart in Paris and he became a restless experimenter with etching techniques. In later years, with his friend Armand Rassenfosse they developed a new soft ground varnish method which was dubbed "Ropsenfosse". His activity as a lithographer had ceased by 1865, and although he continued oil painting, etching became his principal medium. He produced 34 frontispieces for books published between 1864 and 1870 and founded the short-lived International Society of Etchers (1869–1871).

Later career in Paris (1871–1898)

By 1875 Félicien and Charlotte were permanently estranged, although they never divorced. However, far from being disheartened, he thrived among the Parisian artists and poets and his critical reputation grew. There was a greater demand than ever for his illustrations in the last quarter of the 19th century by the publishers and authors of the literary vanguard. Rops was prolific and achieved financial success, boasting in 1877 that "he was the best-paid illustrator in France." He traveled extensively throughout Europe, ranging from the capital cities and art centers, to salmon fishing in Norway and Sweden, back country ventures in Hungary, as well as Spain and Northern Africa. Rops frequently exhibited at the various salons in Paris where the public was both fascinated and shocked by his art and his personal life.

Rops was invited to join Les XX or Les Vingt, a group of Belgian artists formed in 1883 which held annual exhibitions and concerts at the Palais des Beaux-Arts and the Museum of Modern Art of Brussels. Founders of the Les Vingt included James Ensor, Théo van Rysselberghe, and Fernand Khnopff among others and were later joined by Anna Boch, Jan Toorop, Odilon Redon, and Paul Signac. Their intention was to protect "true originality" and provide a place "where people are free, not only in fact but above all in thought." For 10 years Les Vingt championed the work of progressive artists and composers of the time including many of the Impressionists, Post-Impressionists, Pointillists, and Symbolists. The French poet Stéphane Mallarmé held Tuesday evening discussions on the arts and literature at his home on 87 Rue de Rome in Paris. These talks became a place of pilgrimage attended by dozens of writers and artists of the time including Rops, Paul Gauguin, J.-K. Huysmans, Édouard Manet, Edvard Munch, Odilon Redon, Paul-Marie Verlaine, and Emile Zola. He maintained his literary associations to the end of his life and in 1896 the literary revue "La Plume" published a special edition tribute volume devoted exclusively to Rops where many of the prominent authors and artists such as Puvis de Chavannes, Joris-Karl Huysmans, Octave Mirbeau, Josephin Peladan, and Jose-Maria De Heredia praised and celebrated his work. Félicien Rops was a freemason and a member of the Grand Orient of Belgium.

Due to an accident with "bichlorate of potassium" in 1892, Rops almost lost his eyesight but he eventually recovered. With his health slowly deteriorating, he spent some time in the south of France with its milder climate on a doctor's orders but it provided only a little relief. Rops died on 23 August 1898 at his home. Rops was buried in Essonnes but his body was moved to the family burial grounds in Namur, Belgium eight years later. The following year, he was posthumously awarded the Legion of Honour.

There is now a Museum, Musée Félicien Rops, in his home town of Namur, Belgium, housing approximately 3,000 engravings and 500 drawings and paintings. Rops also was a gifted and prolific writer of letters. Referring to Rops, Edgar Degas told Manet "That one writes even better than he engraves [...]. If they ever publish his correspondence, I’ll sign up for a thousand copies of propaganda" The Félicien Rops Museum has documented and indexed over 4,000 letters so far, over half are currently available online (see External Links below). His correspondences serve as valuable documents and references, not only for Rops and his work, but for the numerous artists, writers, publishers, and other notable culture figures of late 19th century Europe. The biographers of Baudelaire have drawn from Rops's letters extensively (e.g.).

Art

The art of Félicien Rops

Félicien Rops was a prolific and versatile artist. In addition to works of fine art depicting genre subjects, still-life, landscapes, he produced hundreds of comics, caricatures, book illustrations, and even an occasional advertisement. His style could sway from realism, to symbolism, and at times even touch on romanticism and impressionism. His images can be pastoral or urban; social and political critiques both sympathetic and caustic; documentary or fantasy; and range from poetic and metaphoric to stark realism. Three etchings depicting animals illustrate a wide display of approaches in styles, techniques, and underlying connotations (see gallery II). Japanese Salamander and Beetle is loose in technique and a simple, decorative nature study, one of a few pastiches Rops made of Japanese woodblock printing that were popular and influential among European artists in the late 19th century. The Cat, executed in an illustrative, near academic style, presents a pleasant likeness of a cat, yet embroidered on the chair is the phrase "Amica Non Serva" [Friend Not Servant], endowing this unassuming image with a declaration of sovereignty not immediately apparent to the casual viewer.

Working in a long and rich tradition of Franco-Flemish realist-genre painting (e.g., the Le Nain Brothers, Adriaen Brouwer) but also showing an awareness and influence of contemporaries like Honoré Daumier, Jean-François Millet, and Gustave Courbet, Rops was attracted to genre subjects throughout his life. Although represented in any number of media, they most often appear in his drawings and etchings. The rural and working people of the Walloon region of Belgium were frequent subjects, typically treated in a simple and sympathetic manner. The elderly appear again and again in works such as Old Kate. Rops also often drew and etched people he encountered in his travels who were dressed in ethnic and regional clothing and costumes, often in a rather documentary style. Two examples include A Shaker Pianist and Head of Zealander: others are La Dalécarlienne (1874), Le Moujick (1874), and In the Pusta (1879). Rops once wrote he had "the desire to depict the scenes and characters of the 19th century that I find so fascinating and curious".

Painting and drawing

Rops's oil paintings are varied in subject and style. They include still life paintings, street scenes such as Entrance to the Ball, the Symbolist Death at the Ball, and many landscapes. He painted landscapes throughout his career, often small canvases done in En plein air. Examples like The Rocks of the Grands Malades and Snow in Thozée were painted in the vicinity of his hometown Namur, in the Walloon region of southern Belgium. The influences of Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Gustave Courbet, and the Barbizon School can be detected in many of his landscapes. Living in Paris and exhibiting with Les XX, Rops had ample opportunity to meet artists and absorb the work of the schools and movements of the day, and elements of impressionism are evident in The Beach in Heist, painted on the Belgian coast.

Prints and book illustrations

"Rops was a printmaker of brilliant technique and original content whose handling of dry point (etching directly on the plate) marks him as one of the masters of the medium." Although Rops worked in a wide range of media, his primary means of expression was printmaking. He worked with lithography, wood engraving, etching, aquatint, mezzotint, soft-ground etching, burin engravings, heliogravure and other techniques producing hundreds of prints in his life. His prints are remarkably diverse and span the full spectrum of the styles and subject matter that he explored throughout his life. He begin shifting from lithography to intaglio in the 1860s when he studied etching with Félix Bracquemond and Jules Ferdinand Jacquemart in Paris. Félix Bracquemond was one of the central figures in reviving an interest in etching among artists of the time, encouraging and coaching artists such as Édouard Manet, Edgar Degas, Camille Pissarro, and others to explore the neglected art form. By the end of the decade Rops had all but abandoned lithography. Rops founded the International Society of Etchers about 1869 or 1870. Although the society received praises from artists and royalty alike, financially he struggled to keep it going for more than two to three years.

Fascinated by the processes, he was constantly experimenting with printmaking techniques throughout his career. Starting around the early 1870s, Rops begin using soft-ground etching, a technique practiced by few artists of his day, often combining it with mezzotint, aquatint, dry point, and other techniques, sometimes adding hand-coloring to the plates. He photo-mechanically (heliogravure) transferred many of his original drawings to intaglio plates, and often developed the images further in that medium with any number of techniques such as dry point, aquatint, soft-ground etching, etc. However, traditional soft-ground methods did not work well for his purposes, so in collaboration with his friend and colleague Armand Rassenfosse, they invented a process they called "Ropsenfosse". Ropsenfosse used several different soft-ground formulas and was likely the first soft-ground method used to produce color prints with two or more plates.

His etchings were popular and many of the progressive writers, poets, and publishers of late 19th-century literature sought out his talents for their publications. His prints were widely distributed in the books he illustrated and influenced many younger artists, including several Symbolists and Expressionist such as Max Beckmann, Lovis Corinth, James Ensor, Alfred Kubin, Fernand Khnopff, Max Klinger, Edvard Munch and others.

Images for kids

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  Entrance to the Ball (ca. 1858) Oil on canvas, mounted on board (29.5 x 21 cm) Musée Félicien Rops, Namur, Belgium

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  The Human Parody (1878–1881) watercolor, pastel, chalk (22.5 x 15 cm)

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  Paul Rops Sleeping (ca. 1872–75), oil on canvas (size unknown) Félicien Rops Fund, Namur, Belgium

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  Pears and Apple on a Plate (1882) oil on canvas (22,5 x 32 cm) Friends of the Musée Félicien Rops, Namur

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  The Rocks of the Grands Malades (1876) oil on canvas, Musée des Beaux Arts Ixelles

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  Snow in Thozée (no date) oil on canvas, Belfius Bank & Insurance, Brussels

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  The Pond of Bambois (1865) oil on panel (18.5 × 24 cm) Charleroi Museum of Fine Arts

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  More from Bambois (no date) oil on canvas, Musée Félicien Rops, Namur, Belgium

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  The Beach in Heist (1886) oil on canvas, Musée Félicien Rops Namen, Belgium

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  Japanese Salamander and Beetle (no date) aquatint (9.21 x 6.67 cm) Los Angeles County Museum

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  The Cat [Amica Non Serva, Friend Not Servant] (no date) etching (8.26 x 5.87 cm) Los Angeles County Museum of Art

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  A Shaker Pianist (1888) etching (16.99 x 11.75 cm) Los Angeles County Museum of Art

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  The Strike (1876) etching, drypoint (19.8 x 15.2 cm) Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University, Atlanta

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  Head of Zealander (1886) soft-ground etching (19.69 x 23.65 cm) Los Angeles County Museum of Art

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  Old Kate (1895) heliogravure & roulette (25.9 x 19.5 cm) Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University, Atlanta

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  Funeral in the Walloon Country (1863) lithograph, Musée Félicien Rops, Namen, Belgium

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  Jean Brouette (1875) etching (19.84 x 12.86 cm) Los Angeles County Museum of Art

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  Parable of the Sower (no date) heliogravure, drypoint (16.3 x 11.4 cm) Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University, Atlanta

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  The Kitchen of the Artists' Inn, in Anseremme (no date) etching (19.05 x 13.81 cm) Los Angeles County Museum of Art

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  The Vengeance of a Woman (c. 1882–1886) etching (12.38 x 9.05 cm) Los Angeles County Museum of Art

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  Beneath the Cards in a Game of Whist (ca. 1887–93) heliogravure (24.2 x 16.3 cm) Los Angeles County Museum of Art

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  The White Slave: The Casinos (Uylenspiegel, No. 11, 13 Apr. 1856) lithograph (30.16 x 22.7 cm) Los Angeles County Museum of Art

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  Galerie d'Uylenspiegel, Eduoard (Uylenspiegel, no. 5, 2 March 1856) lithograph (22.54 x 16.03 cm) Los Angeles County Museum of Art

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  Jardin Zoologique (Uylenspiegel, no. 20, 15 June 1856) lithograph (20.32 x 17.15 cm) Los Angeles County Museum of Art

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  Jardin Zoologique (Uylenspiegel, no. 28, 9 August 1857) lithograph) (28.58 x 20.64 cm) Los Angeles County Museum of Art

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  Louis Defré (aka Maurice Voituron & Joseph Boniface), burgomaster of Uccle (1858) lithograph (28.58 x 19.53 cm) L.A. County Museum.

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  Political Comedy (1859) lithograph (23.65 x 18.89 cm) Los Angeles County Museum of Art of Art

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  The Last Incarnation of Vautrin (Uylenspiegel, No. 39, 2 Nov. 1862) lithograph (29.53 x 22.07 cm) Los Angeles County Museum of Art

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  Order Reigns in Warsaw (1863) lithograph (36.4 x 29.7)

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  Misanthropie! (1872) etching on Japan paper (19.37 x 15.08 cm) Los Angeles County Museum of Art

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  Parisian Life (1876) wood engraving (34.7 x 27.15 cm) Los Angeles County Museum of Art

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  Duluc Sisters, Dresses (no date) etching (7.62 x 5.56 cm) Los Angeles County Museum of Art I

See also

In Spanish: Félicien Rops para niños