1858-1921 Belgian Fernand Khnopff Gallery Fernand Khnopff was born to a wealthy family that was part of the high bourgeoisie for generations. Khnopff's ancestors had lived in Flanders since the early 17th-century but were of Austrian and Portuguese descent. Most male members of his family had been lawyers or judges, and young Fernand was destined for a juridical career. In his early childhood (1859-1864) he lived in Bruges where his father was appointed Substitut Du Procureur Du Roi. His childhood memories of the medieval city of Bruges would play a significant role in his later work. In 1864 the family moved to Brussels. To please his parents he went to law school at the Free University of Brussels (now divided into the Universite Libre de Bruxelles and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel) when he was 18 years old. During this period he developed a passion for literature, discovering the works of Baudelaire, Flaubert, Leconte de Lisle and other mostly French authors. With his younger brother Georges Khnopff - also a passionate amateur of contemporary music and poetry - he started to frequent Jeune Belgique ("Young Belgium"), a group of young writers including Max Waller, Georges Rodenbach, Iwan Gilkin and Emile Verhaeren. Khnopff left University due to a lack of interest in his law studies and began to frequent the studio of Xavier Mellery, who made him familiar with the art of painting. On the 25th of October 1876 he enrolled for the Cours De Dessin Apres Nature ("course of drawing after nature") at the Academie Royale des Beaux-Arts en Bruxelles. At the Academie, his most famous fellow student was James Ensor, whom he disliked from the start. Between 1877 and 1880 Khnopff made several trips to Paris where he discovered the work of Delacroix, Ingres, Moreau and Stevens. At the Paris World Fair of 1878 he became acquainted with the oeuvre of Millais and Burne-Jones. During his last year at the Acad??mie in 1878-1879 he neglected his classes in Brussels and lived for a while in Passy, were he visited the Cours Libres of Jules Joseph Lefebvre at the Acad??mie Julian.   Related Paintings of Fernand Khnopff :. | Acrasia The Faerie Queen | The Sphinx, or, The Caresses | A Shoulder | Portrait of a Man | The end of the day |
Related Artists:
Francois Lemoine
1688-1737
Ercole Roberti
1456-1496 Italian Ercole Roberti Gallery Ercole de' Roberti (c. 1451 ?C 1496), also known as Ercole Ferrarese or Ercole da Ferrara, was an Italian artist of the Early Renaissance and the School of Ferrara. He was profiled in Vasari's Le Vite delle pi?? eccellenti pittori, scultori, ed architettori. The son of the doorkeeper at the Este castle, Ercole later held the position of court artist for the Este family in Ferrara. According to Vasari: By 1473, when he was 17, Ercole had left Ferrara and was working in Bologna in the studio of Francesco del Cossa. (According to Vasari, Ercole also apprenticed under Lorenzo Costa in Bologna, but this seems unlikely as he was Lorenzo's senior by seveal years). He is known to have collaborated in the frescoes of Palazzo Schifanoia. Ercole's first mature works are his contributions to the Griffoni Chapel for the San Petronio Basilica in Bologna: a predella depicting the Miracles of St Vincent Ferrer (c.1473) (now in the Pinacoteca of the Vatican), and lateral pilasters for the altarpiece commissioned from del Cossa. In 1480, Ercole created a large altarpiece with a Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints for Santa Maria in Porto in Ravenna, which is now in the Brera, Milan. Portraits of Giovanni II Bentivoglio and Ginevra Bentivoglio attributed to Ercole de' Roberti (c. 1480) are in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Ercole succeeded Cosm?? Tura as court painter to the Este family in Ferrara around 1486. His role apparently went far beyond making art: he accompanied Alfonso d'Este on a papal visit to Rome, served as wardrobe manager for Isabella d'Este's wedding in Mantua, and may even have made salamis. A painting of Portia and Brutus (c. 1486-90), believed to be painted for Eleonora of Aragon, duchess of Ferrara, is in the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas. Ercole's painting of Saint Jerome in the Wilderness from this period is in the collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.
francois raguenet