Liesbeth Grotenhuis

Twinkling voices from the Gods: Fernand Khnopff's use of stars as mystique guides

Abstract

'When the lips sleep, the souls awake' Belgian poet Maeterlinck wrote. His words express the quest for a ritual, active silence that was sought throughout the fin-de-siecle. Preferably during night time, the soul of the chosen could learn how to blossom. But how to paint such content? This paper examines the work 'Un ange' in which Symbolist painter Fernand Khnopff places a duo against a sparkling sky. The stars relate to the hieroglyph-like signs depicted on the plinth: with the sphinx, it refers to the culture of ancient Egypt.Already the Romans adapted the Egyptian knowledge of astrology, while the early 'scientist' Athanasius Kircher related the wisdom in the zodiac to the even more secret wisdom of -the Hellenized Egyptian god- Hermes Trismegistos. Khnopff used this knowledge in a contemporary answer on Peladan's statement: Artist you are priest, you are king, you are magician. His use of the starry sky offered the viewer a key to ancient wisdom.

Biography

Liesbeth Grotenhuis is a Dutch art historian, earning her MA art history (Modern Art and Egyptian Art) from the University of Groningen and Leyden. Specialising in nineteenth-century art and particularly the Egyptian influences on it, her current research is on the iconographic motif of the Sphinx in Academism and Symbolism. Diverse related papers were presented on different conferences and articles are published and in press.