Shop art print and framed art Une forge by Fernand Cormon

"Portrait of Marguerite Khnopff" is a painting by the Belgian painter Fernand Khnopff, painted in 1887, oil on canvas (pasted on panel), 96 x 74.5 centimetres. It is a portrait of his sister Marguerite. The painting was purchased by the King Baudouin Foundation's Heritage Fund and is on loan to the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels. Khnopff remained single for most of his life. It was not until he was fifty that he married Marthe Worms, aged 16, but the marriage was dissolved less than three years later. She underlines Khnopff's life motto, "On n'a que soi", which appears in large letters above his villa in Brussels. According to Khnopff, each person is ultimately alone, each person is an isolated individual who can count on no support from those around him. Khnopff nevertheless had a special, intimate relationship with his sister Marguerite, whom he painted on numerous occasions. In Memories of lawn tennis (1889), he juxtaposed her seven times, creating an idealistic dreamscape that seemed to escape the laws of space and time. It marks his transition to Symbolism in the late 1880s and can be seen as a prelude to later Surrealism. His 1887 Portrait of Marguerite Khnopff is still clearly under the influence of Impressionism, with influences from James McNeill Whistler, whom he admired. Khnopff painted his sister in white, the colour of innocence, and portrayed her as an icon of the ideal, perfect woman. Her tight corset is closed up to the neck, and the [...]

 

This artwork is a painting from the modern period. It belongs to the neoclassicism style.

 

« Une forge » is kept at Musée d'Orsay, Paris, France.

 

Find the full description of Une forge by Fernand Cormon on Wikipedia.