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Lot Essay
Le vice suprême is one of Fernand Khnopff's most renowned drawings. Seen by some commentators as an unfathomable enigma, and by others as the straightforward depiction of the supremacy of woman and love, this mysterious work is a quintessential example of Symbolism.
Khnopff executed Le vice suprême early in his career, just as he and Les XX - the avant-garde artists' society of which he and James Ensor were among the co-founders - caught the public eye. Although Les XX espoused no formal theory of art ("absolute freedom" was their cry), it was rapidly caught in the powerful literary crosscurrents that swirled around Paris and Brussels. Under the influence of writers such as Emile Verhaeren and Octave Maus, it soon provided a forum for the visual expression of Symbolist ideas.
"Symbolism was a longing for the spiritual, a protest against Naturalism. Among major beliefs was that ultimate reality lay not in appearances but in the concept underlying them and that poetry, music and the figurative arts should break down any barriers between them. Art should cease to be objective...In fact a new Romanticism was emerging -- less often swept by tumultuous passions and concerned essentially with probing the inner world, its memories and dreams, with the creation of a 'nouveau frisson' as its goal. Art was to put its trust in intuition and, on Baudelaire's example, to try to convey thought and emotion by means of transposition. 'It means withdrawing', said an unnamed writer, 'to the innermost recesses of existence, to the dark, fantastic place where dreams and visions have their dwelling." (F.-C. Legrand, Apollo, April 1967, op cit.)
Indeed Khnopff's work was described by Emile Verhaeren as "suggestions of thought". In this context the image of the woman in the present
drawing can be considered purely symbolic -- the incarnation of human
passions and ideas.
According to Gisèle Ollinger-Zinque "Representations of women play a central role in Belgian Symbolism: the figure of Woman is seen as an
embodiment of the duality and ambiguity of earthly existence. For
Khnopff, Woman is by turns the angel, muse and friend who flies to
Man's salvation. Yet she is also the depraved temptress, the femme fatale, the living symbol of Péladan's vice suprême. Angel or demon, she is always alone, isolated from the world and unattainable. She speaks to no one, and Love, the very symbol of communion, is denied her" (Six Symbolist Works, Patrick Derom Gallery, Brussels, 2005, p. 23).
Joséphin Péladan, the eccentric self-styled "Sâr" or magus was one of the most powerful influences on Khnopff. The present work (the full title of which is D'Après Joséphin Péladan. Le vice suprême) was intended to illustrate the preface for Le vice suprême, the first and best known of 21 volumes of his Décadence latine. A staunch reactionary, the Sâr had a messianic belief in the importance of the artist as a bulwark against the decadence of modern life -- just the kind of aristocratic thinking that would appeal to Khnopff's sensibilities, and reinforce his penchant for legend and the mysterious.
A first drawing of this subject was destroyed by the artist on 22 February 1885 at the whim of the actress Rose Caron. A furious Péladan wrote to the director of the journal La Réforme: "I say to Mr Khnopff that for a fool he has destroyed a work of art that did not belong to him; he has stolen from Belgian art a masterpiece and from me a wonderful commentary on my thinking. So as not to displease an actress he has destroyed a writer!" (quoted in Fernand Khnopff, exh. cat., 2004, op. cit, p. 198). The present drawing was subsequently produced for the Salon des XX of the following year. It attracted great attention both in Belgium and, twelve years later, in Vienna, where it found a special echo with the work of the anti-academic Viennese Secessionists such as Gustav Klimt.
Khnopff executed Le vice suprême early in his career, just as he and Les XX - the avant-garde artists' society of which he and James Ensor were among the co-founders - caught the public eye. Although Les XX espoused no formal theory of art ("absolute freedom" was their cry), it was rapidly caught in the powerful literary crosscurrents that swirled around Paris and Brussels. Under the influence of writers such as Emile Verhaeren and Octave Maus, it soon provided a forum for the visual expression of Symbolist ideas.
"Symbolism was a longing for the spiritual, a protest against Naturalism. Among major beliefs was that ultimate reality lay not in appearances but in the concept underlying them and that poetry, music and the figurative arts should break down any barriers between them. Art should cease to be objective...In fact a new Romanticism was emerging -- less often swept by tumultuous passions and concerned essentially with probing the inner world, its memories and dreams, with the creation of a 'nouveau frisson' as its goal. Art was to put its trust in intuition and, on Baudelaire's example, to try to convey thought and emotion by means of transposition. 'It means withdrawing', said an unnamed writer, 'to the innermost recesses of existence, to the dark, fantastic place where dreams and visions have their dwelling." (F.-C. Legrand, Apollo, April 1967, op cit.)
Indeed Khnopff's work was described by Emile Verhaeren as "suggestions of thought". In this context the image of the woman in the present
drawing can be considered purely symbolic -- the incarnation of human
passions and ideas.
According to Gisèle Ollinger-Zinque "Representations of women play a central role in Belgian Symbolism: the figure of Woman is seen as an
embodiment of the duality and ambiguity of earthly existence. For
Khnopff, Woman is by turns the angel, muse and friend who flies to
Man's salvation. Yet she is also the depraved temptress, the femme fatale, the living symbol of Péladan's vice suprême. Angel or demon, she is always alone, isolated from the world and unattainable. She speaks to no one, and Love, the very symbol of communion, is denied her" (Six Symbolist Works, Patrick Derom Gallery, Brussels, 2005, p. 23).
Joséphin Péladan, the eccentric self-styled "Sâr" or magus was one of the most powerful influences on Khnopff. The present work (the full title of which is D'Après Joséphin Péladan. Le vice suprême) was intended to illustrate the preface for Le vice suprême, the first and best known of 21 volumes of his Décadence latine. A staunch reactionary, the Sâr had a messianic belief in the importance of the artist as a bulwark against the decadence of modern life -- just the kind of aristocratic thinking that would appeal to Khnopff's sensibilities, and reinforce his penchant for legend and the mysterious.
A first drawing of this subject was destroyed by the artist on 22 February 1885 at the whim of the actress Rose Caron. A furious Péladan wrote to the director of the journal La Réforme: "I say to Mr Khnopff that for a fool he has destroyed a work of art that did not belong to him; he has stolen from Belgian art a masterpiece and from me a wonderful commentary on my thinking. So as not to displease an actress he has destroyed a writer!" (quoted in Fernand Khnopff, exh. cat., 2004, op. cit, p. 198). The present drawing was subsequently produced for the Salon des XX of the following year. It attracted great attention both in Belgium and, twelve years later, in Vienna, where it found a special echo with the work of the anti-academic Viennese Secessionists such as Gustav Klimt.