Khnopff
The technically versatile artist Fernand Khnopff is one of the most important representatives of Symbolism in Belgium. While Bruges – the city where he spent his early childhood years – and Fosset, his family holiday home in the Ardennes, were his principal subjects, his sister Marguerite was his favourite model and muse. A lover of literature and an anglophile, joint founder of Les XX and later of La Libre Esthétique, and a designer of sets and costumes for the opera, he was constantly searching for the “ideal of beauty”. He became known as the painter of THE woman – as angel, vamp, or devil. After 1900 he concentrated on the construction of his house, “the temple of the ego” (since demolished).