Fernand Khnopff's Vivien

Video Transcript

"Fernand Khnopff sculptors of Femme Vivien. This is one of the title because it has another title Nymph. Fernand Khnopff, he's a Belgian painter, sculptor, print maker, so a very talented artist from the end of the 18th, 19th century. He is really important because the first movement of the secession of Art Nouveau, begin in Brussels and in the beginning of the 80s and he was one of the artist who took part in this movement. So the Belgian Art Nouveau was the first Art Nouveau movement in Europe. This sculpture is very, is interesting because we can see which influences were important for the secession artist. If we use the title Vivien, because Vivien was the lover of Merlin or better to say Merlin, from the story of King Arthur, falling in love with Vivien and he taught all of his knowledge to her so she became a woman magician. And so in this story, Vivien represent the woman, femme fatal, from the end of the 19th century. And so it's really important that the secessionism had a big influence from the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood. This brotherhood were made, was made in 1848 in England and they wanted to paint in the style before Raphaelo. So their main goal was to use stories from literature and poetry. The story of King Arthur was very popular among them as well the plays of Shakespeare, they were really interested in such things. They wanted to display not historical scenes but, of course, these topics were in a way historical. What is the connection of Knopff all to these? That he was active from the beginning of the 80's and he were exhibiting his works in England as well. And he became an expert of the English painting of the 19th century and he came to familiar to this Pre-Raphaelite painters like William Holman Hunt or Dante Gabriel Rossetti. I think that was the reason to make the sculptor of Vivien to, it's a colorful sculptor which is really rare at that time but he wanted to introduce this thing. And we can see the half body of Vivien before a kind of a gothic altar which also connection to the Pre Raphaelite brotherhood who wanted to get the Medieval atmosphere, Medieval mood."