Félicien Victor Joseph Rops (; 7 July 1833 – 23 August 1898) was a Belgian artist associated with Symbolism, Decadence, and the Parisian , and was a member of the Les XX group. He was a painter, illustrator, caricaturist and a prolific and innovative print maker, particularly in intaglio (etching and aquatint). Although not well known to the general public and initially sought after as a pornographer, Rops was greatly respected by his bohemian peers and actively pursued and celebrated as an illustrator by the publishers, authors, and poets of his time. He provided frontispieces and illustrations for works by Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly, Charles Baudelaire, Charles De Coster, Théophile Gautier, Joris-Karl Huysmans, Stéphane Mallarmé, Joséphin Péladan, Paul Verlaine, Voltaire, and many others. Best known today for his prints and drawings illustrating erotic and occult literature of the period, he also produced oil paintings including landscapes, seascapes, and occasional genre paintings. Rops is recognized as a pioneer of Belgian comics.Robert L. Delevoy (1978) Symbolists and Symbolism. Skira/Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., New York, 247 pp.Jean Cassou (1979) The Concise Encyclopedia of Symbolism. Chartwell Books, Inc., Secaucus, New Jersey, 292 pp. [48, 94, 130-131 pp.]Lambiek Comiclopedia: Félicien Rops. Entry by Kjell Knudde. https://www.lambiek.net/artists/r/rops_felicien.htmPatrick Bade (2003) Félicien Rops. Parkstone Press Ltd, New York, 95 pp.
Biography Childhood and education (1833–1857) Rops was born 7 July 1833 in Namur, Belgium, the only child of Sophie Maubile and Nicholas Rops. The Rops were a well-off bourgeois family, their wealth coming from textile manufacturing. Félicien was educated at his home by private tutors until the age of ten; then in 1843, he enrolled in a local Jesuit school for the next five years. His ability to recite lengthy passages from the Bible in Latin attest to both a good education and his intelligence, although even as a schoolboy it is reported that he had "begun to let fantasy dominate his thinking" and received complaints about "his passion for producing uninhibited caricatures of his teachers".Lee Revens and J.-K. Huysmans (1975) The Graphic Work of Félicien Rops. Léon Amiel Publisher, New York. 288 pp. [8-11 pp.] Nicholas Rops died in 1849. After some disagreements between Rops and his mother over the direction of his future education, a compromise was reached, and in June 1849 he enrolled at the Athénée secondary school in Namur while simultaneously attending the Academy of Fine Arts there.Hoffmann, Edith, "Rops, Félicien", Oxford Art Online
In 1851, Rops moved to Brussels and began studying law at the University of Brussels. However, by 1853, he was attending the Académie de Saint-Luc where he studied drawing and developed his skill as a draughtsman working from live models, meeting others like Louis Artan, Constantin Meunier, and Charles de Groux, and taking part in the local bohemian milieu. It was at this time that he began contributing caricatures, cartoons, and satirical lithographs to student magazines, in particular Le Crocodile which brought him some notoriety. In 1856, Rops, along with Victor Hallaux (pseudonym Victor de la Hesbaye) and Charles De Coster progressed from student magazines to founding their own journal, The Uylenspiegel, a weekly artistic and literary satirical review to which he contributed one or two lithographs an issue, more than 180 total, furthering his reputation.Rops, Félicien, and Brison, Charles (1969). Pornocrates: an introduction to the life and work of Felicien Rops, 1833–1898. Skilton. p. 10.
Early career in Belgium, and marriage (1857–1870)
In June 1857, Rops married Charlotte Polet de Faveaux, the daughter of a wealthy magistrate and owner of Thozée Castle (see external links below) in the countryside near the town of Mettet, Belgium. For the first few years at Thozée, Rops enjoyed a comfortable life of a country gentleman, pursuing passions for painting, botany, and even founding a rowing club in 1862, the Royal Nautical Club of Sambre and Meuse. He spoke highly of his father-in-law in his letters. Rops and his wife had a son, Paul, in 1858, and a daughter, Juliet, in 1859, who died at the age of five. Rops relinquished his managerial role at Uylenspiegel but continued contributing cartoons and illustrations until 1862. He began to explore etching and produced political lithographs, occasional caricatures and cartoons for magazines, and frontispieces and illustrations for books. He illustrated a number of De Coster's books including Légendes Flamandes (1858), Contes Brabançons (1861) and La Légende d'Uylenspiegel ('Tijl Uilenspiegel', 1867). His home became a gathering place for artists, writers, publishers and friends. The Société Libre des Beaux-Arts (Free Society of Fine Arts) in Brussels was founded in 1868 and Rops served as vice-president for several years. By the 1860s, Rops was traveling extensively and dividing his time between Thozée Castle, Namur, Brussels, and Paris each year; with ever extending time in Paris at the center of the art and literary world, and ever decreasing time at Thozée Castle and Namur with his wife and family as the decade passed.Félicien Rops Biography. Musée Félicien Rops, Province de Numar. Accessed 12 September 2019 https://www.museerops.be/biographie
In 1862, he studied etching with Félix Bracquemond and Jules Ferdinand Jacquemart in Paris and he became a restless experimenter with etching techniques. In later years, with his friend Armand Rassenfosse they developed a new soft ground varnish method which was dubbed "Ropsenfosse". His activity as a lithographer had ceased by 1865, and although he continued oil painting, etching became his principal medium. He produced 34 frontispieces for books published between 1864 and 1870 and founded the short-lived International Society of Etchers (1869–1871).
Relationship with Charles Baudelaire (1862–1867) Baudelaire wrote the following tribute to Rops:
Use all your eloquence..../ To say how much I like / That bizarre Mr. Rops / Who may not be a Rome First Prize / But whose talent is as great / As the pyramids of Cheops.
Rops created the frontispiece for Baudelaire's Les Épaves (The Wreckage) and a selection of poems from Les Fleurs du mal (The Flowers of Evil) that had been censored in France, and were therefore published in Belgium. Rops first met Baudelaire's publisher Auguste Poulet-Malassis in 1862 and was later introduced to Charles Baudelaire towards the end of the poet's life. A friendship developed and Baudelaire visited the Rops family at Thozée Castle on many occasions and they traveled together on at least one occasion. In a letter (25 August 1886) discussing Baudelaire's writing, Rops wrote: "I lived with Baudelaire for two years. and often served him as a secretary, I never once saw him consult a dictionary. He didn't have any, and didn't want to have any...saying 'A man who looks up a word in a dictionary is like a conscript who, upon receiving the order to fire, looks for a cartridge in his pouch.Claude Pichois (1989) Baudelaire. Hamish Hamilton Ltd. (The Penguin Group, London). In a letter to Édouard Manet (11 May 1865) Baudelaire wrote, "Rops is the only true artist (in the sense in which I, and perhaps I alone, understand the word artist), that I have found in Belgium."Lois Boe Hyslop and Francis E. Hyslop, Jr. (1957) Baudelaire: A Self-Portrait. Oxford University Press, London. By 1866 Baudelaire and Poulet-Malassis were both in Belgium, in self-imposed exile evading creditors. Baudelaire stated that Rops and Poulet-Malassis were the only persons who "lightened [his] sadness in Belgium".Félicien Rops, Baudelaire and skeleton passions. British Library, European Studies Blog, 27 October 2014. Accessed 12 September 2019 https://blogs.bl.uk/european/2014/10/f%C3%A9licien-rops-baudelaire-and-skeleton-passions.html
It was while visiting Namur, in March 1866, that Baudelaire's first symptoms of aphasia and hemiplegia became apparent. Rops invited Baudelaire and Poulet-Malassis to visit his hometown, where Baudelaire had seen and admired the baroque Church of Saint-Loup at Namur (see external links below) before, calling it "the masterpiece of Jesuit masterpieces"Georges Poulet (1969) Who was Baudelaire? Editions d'Art Albert Skira, Geneva. 188 pp. and stating the stained-glass windows illuminated the interior like a "terrible and delightful catafalque". Baudelaire collapsed on the floor while they were admiring the carving on the confessionals there. Baudelaire never fully recovered and died in August 1867 at the age of 46.
Baudelaire left an impression upon Rops that lasted until the end of his life. His association with Baudelaire and his illustrations of his poetry helped increase the visibility of his work and win the admiration of many other artists and writers, including Théophile Gautier, Stéphane Mallarmé, Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly, Joséphin Péladan, Puvis de Chavannes, Gustave Moreau, and Edmond and Jules de Goncourt. By 1870 Rops had made many friends and was living in Paris most of the year and immersed at the heart of literary Paris and the Symbolist and Decadent movements. Taking his cue from Baudelaire's "The Painter of Modern Life", he "cultivated the airs of a dandy". Félix Fénéon was to write of him "Rops: Anoints himself with rouge, dyes his hair and wears a blood-red shirt: looks, or so he hopes, like a sarcastic Satan."Paul Adam, Jean Moréas, and Félix Fénéon (1886) Petit Bottin de Letters et des Arts. E. Giraud & Co., Paris.
Later career in Paris (1871–1898) The extended months in Paris away from his wife, and his poorly concealed extramarital affairs (described by his biographer Patrick Bade as his "careless contempt for bourgeois family values") took a toll on Rops's marriage by the early 1870s. His wife Charlotte wrote to him in a letter: "Your latest despicable affair, the eighth since I met you and we were married, was your way of punishing others, you killed me! Since you don't want to see me any more and asked me not to write to you any more, I want my last word to you to be a word of pardon". One of his mistresses—Alice Renaud, the woman referred to in his wife's letter—was murdered by her jealous husband a few years later, and Rops was involved in the scandal when his intimate love letters to her were read out loud at her husband's trial. Although they never divorced, by 1875 Félicien and Charlotte were permanently estranged and Paris was to be his home for the remainder of his life.
However, far from being disheartened, he thrived among the Parisian artists and poets and his critical reputation grew. There was a greater demand than ever for his illustrations in the last quarter of the 19th century by the publishers and authors of the literary vanguard. Rops was prolific and achieved financial success, boasting in 1877 that "he was the best-paid illustrator in France." He traveled extensively throughout Europe, ranging from the capital cities and art centers, to salmon fishing in Norway and Sweden, back country ventures in Hungary, as well as Spain and Northern Africa. Rops frequently exhibited at the various salons in Paris where the public was both fascinated and shocked by his art and his personal life.