CE TANT BIZARRE MONSIEUR ROPS

Through various letters by painter and engraver Félicien Rops and fragments from the book Camille Lemonnier devoted to him, we penetrate the artist’s work: an often gruesome, at times amused account of 19th century morals; the subject matter is permeated by eroticism and haunted by death. The audacity of his work, his disgust of hypocrisy, his criticism on the middle classes and religion assured him of a series of enemies. His talent and ingenuity seduced enticed many an artist and writer of his time: Baudelaire, Barbey d’Aurevilly, J-K Huysmans, the Goncourt brothers, Emile Zola, Guy de Maupassant, Daudet, Verlaine, Mallarmé, Manet, Rodin or Nadar. Not to mention the women…

This work has been digitised in the frame of DCA Project