Idbury Prints: An online gallery of original fine art prints

FELICIEN ROPS (Belgian / 1833-1898)

Félicien Joseph Victor Rops was born in Namur in Belgium. Félicien (Fély, to his intimates) was a largely self-taught artist, though he benefited from the advice of Gustave Courbet, whom he met in 1861, when Courbet was in Belgium. Félicien Rops was first influenced by the Flemish school, and then by the French realists, including Courbet, Millet, Degas and Manet. But his attraction to a world of decadent sensuality led Rops naturally to Symbolism, in which movement he was a major figure. His many nudes treat female sexuality with a kind of fascinated repulsion, typical of Symbolist writers such as Baudelaire and Huysmans, who was one of the few to really appreciate Rops’ genius. Félicien Rops made some plates in collaboration with Rassenfosse, and exercised a great influence over like-minded younger printmakers such as Almèry Lobel-Riche and Henri Thomas. See: Exsteens, L'oeuvre gravé et lithographié de Félicien Rops.