'Fernand Khnopff (1858-1921) The master of enigma'

The exhibition, curated by Michel Draguet, Director of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium; Christophe Leribault, Director of the Petit Palais; Dominique Morel, Chief Curator at the Petit Palais, brings together around one hundred emblematic examples of the complex aesthetic of Fernand Khnopff, who was an engraver, sculptor, painter, draftsman and the stage director of his personal work. The artist toys with themes, from fantasy to the nude, from portraits to dreamlike memories, and invites reverie and a meditation on identity. Khnopff’s major works are counterpointed with those of artistic contemporaries, from Gustave Moreau to Von Stuck and Klimt, which allows situating him in the context of fin-de-siècle Europe. The exhibition, non-chronological, design attempts to re-create the initiatory pathway of the false dwelling that served as his workshop, like the one in Stoclet Palace in Brussels, where Belgian and Viennese aesthetics encountered each other. It presents instead the major themes that permeate Khnopff’s work: from portraits of children and reveries inspired by the Flemish Primitives to memories of Bruges-la-Morte and the complex use of photography, all the way to personal mythologies under the sign of Hypnos.