Essay by David Freeman, Class of 2006

Faces dominate the works of Fernand Khnopff, particularly enigmatic feminine faces. Khnopff was a leading artist of the Symbolist movement which emerged during the late nineteenth century. Symbolism was founded on the idea that images hold a power over the mind and convey meaning without being completely specific or rational (Lucie-Smith 15-24). The movement was inspired by the work of French poets such as Stéphane Mallarmé and Paul Verlaine and may be traced in the late works of French artists Henri Fantin-Latour and Paul Gauguin.

Un masque à la tenture mauve exhibits a mesmerizing image of a red-haired woman staring at the viewer against a patterned background. In her right hand she holds a scepter with a blue orb surrounding a small nude female figurine. Introspection and thought are major themes and products of Khnopff's work (Friedman 6). His pieces are known for their sexual appeal and mystery. He was a harbinger of issues concerning the unconscious mind, prior to Sigmund Freud. Freud elucidated the theory that the mind is a complex system and helped to define the concepts of the unconscious, sexuality and repression.

Khnopff used photographs as sources, taking the immediate impression, then altering the background, coloring or other components. These helped to provide the foundation on which he projected his Symbolist images. Khnopff was also very interested in the poetic nature of color, and he combined it with form to create introspective and evocative moods. He sought eternal themes in his works, choosing subjects which embodied such intangible concepts as time, love, death, fate, consciousness, religion and philosophy (Friedman 8). The enigmatic image that Khnopff portrayed was intentional and reflective of the aims of the Symbolist movement.

The Symbolists frequently depicted a new conception of women, which showed them as femme fatales (fatal women). Using the word mask in the title of the piece allowed Khnopff more symbolic freedom and further confuses the meaning for the viewer. The mask term may apply to the fact that the forehead is missing, and may physically represent the withdrawal of her mind. This also brings more focus on the face, particularly the lips. Khnopff himself described that: "The expression of the mouth is the truest; there it is almost impossible to dissimulate" (Laillet 202). The connotation of a mask with the myriad of other uncertain symbols accomplishes a goal for which Symbolists strove: to challenge the viewer to interpret the work, not for its superficial imagery, but to reflect more deeply on its underlying meaning.