‘Twinkling voices from the Gods: Fernand Khnopff’s use of stars as mystique guides.’ presentation on the conference ‘Astrology As Art: Representation and Practice’, University of Wales Trinity Saint David, The Sophia Centre for the Study of Cosmology in Culture, School of Archaeology, History and Anthropology, Bath (UK)
Abstract:
Twinkling voices from the Gods:1 Fernand Khnopff’s use of stars as mystique guides.
Liesbeth Grotenhuis
‘When the lips sleep, the souls awake’2 Belgian poet Maeterlinck wrote. His words express the quest for a ritual, active silence that was sought throughout the fin-de-siècle. 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 pharaonic knowledge of astrology, while 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 contemporain answer on Péladan’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.
1. After: Bruno, Giordano, De Magia. III, p.411-12, quoted in: Yates, Frances Amelia, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition. London 1964, 416.
2. Maeterlinck, Maurice, Le trésor des Humbles. Paris 1896, 13; p.9: ‘Dès que le lèvres dorment, les âmes se réveillent…’.
3. Salon de la Rose & Croix, exhibition catalogue Paris 1892, 7-11 : ‘Artiste, tu es prêtre, tu es roi, tu es mage’.