It is interesting to note that the term Symbolist was first applied to the poems of Stéphane Mallarmé and Paul Verlaine in 1886 and then soon reached the visual arts. Though the artists painted a realistic depiction on their canvases, they embedded their imaginary dreams in those scenes to give psychological, sexual, and mystical content, which we call ‘Symbolism’. Being an international phenomenon, this effect was particularly present in France, where artists like Gustav Moreau and Odilon Redon promoted it by populating their canvases with esoteric, often erotic visions. At the time when Monet, Berthe Morisot, and Pissarro, with several artists, were painting awe-inspiring compositions of light-suffused landscapes, there was the Symbolist era of artists who were combining literature, Bible and Greek mythology with experiences of love, fear, anguish, death, sexual awakening and unexplored desires. During this era, one of the significant artists whose art and life always embodied the essence of Symbolism was Fernand Khnopff. But that is not it! His art had an extreme and perhaps a pure manifestation of many fundamental themes with the contradiction of the Symbolist movement, making his artworks stand apart. One of the most alluring paintings from his gallery, which I am introducing today, is I Lock My Door Upon Myself.
Before I give details on the painting, let me tell you about the artist Fernand Khnopff. As an artist, Khnopff was known for his highly refined aesthetic sensibilities, a strong belief in the sacred nature of art, and a penchant for literary painting, along with an awareness of contemporary research into the expressive possibilities of abstract lines and colors. His art gives direct and indirect evidence about Khnopff’s personality. Since there are no personal letters, by the artist, and a lot of his documents and diaries maintained have been destroyed by his family upon his death, there is little to no information on him. According to the grandson of Khnopff’s sister, Marguerite, Bernard Thibaut de Maisieres, the artist’s mother had no interest in keeping his legacy, which is why she gave away most of his artworks except for the family portraits. All of this makes the personal life of the artist remain obscure. However, the artist left an extensive body of art criticism in Belgian and English journals, which helped the biographers to give valuable information about the artist’s career and art. The symbolist art of Fernand Khnopff by Jeffery W. Howe explains his career and art in the easiest way, which you can add to your booklist.
Having Austrian origin, Fernand was the son of a magistrate born at the chateau of Grembergen near Termonde on September 12, 1858. When he was two, his family moved to Bruges and lived there for around five years and then moved to Brussels, where the artist pursued his education. After a little resistance from his family, the artist first studied at Xavier Mellery and then at the Academie des Beaux-Arts in Brussels. The primary interest of the remained in Delacroix as he wrote;
“I have seen many things, but of all that, that which has struck me is a picture of Delacroix, an entombment found in the church of St. Denis du Sacrement. Never has a work of art made a similar impression on me, it is of a sadness, a despair to break your heart, it is one of those things which it is necessary to see only once to never be able to forget it.”
The letters of the artist from 1877 revealed his wide range of interests in the colors of Ingres, Veronese, Giorgione, Titian, Tintoretto, Rubens, Rembrandt, and Caravaggio.
Coming to the artwork I Lock My Door Upon Myself comes from the 1890s, which marked the height of Khnopff’s prestige and influence, along with some of his other finest pictures like L’ Offrande (1891), Une Aile Bleue (1894) and Des Caresses (1896). But what made these paintings stand apart from the rest of the compositions? It is the use of a consistent principle that orders Khnopff’s construction of symbolic compositions. Khnopff’s concern was to make a symbol of an object or to discover the symbolic meaning of an object, which is meant to reveal the hidden and unconscious resonance of the object. Khnopff chose the symbolic accessories of his pictures from objects that might have secret lives, which paralleled the symbolic essence of the main figure. One of the finest paintings, or perhaps the best example of this principle, is I Lock My Door Upon Myself.
The artist always had the idea of temporary escape from dreams and death as the permanent liberation from this world, which we see in his paintings a lot. Among all his prominent paintings, including this artwork, the artist features a bust of Hypnos, the classical god of sleep and dreams. I Lock My Door Upon Myself is a summation and manifesto of Khnopff’s artistic and moral principles. It has some exceptional motifs like a melancholic Pre-Raphaelite beauty with red hair and penetrating eyes, the bust of Hypnos, flowers, and mirrors, each narrating a different story. The title of the painting is from the poem of Christina Rossetti, who was the sister of the Pre-Raphaelite poet and painter. It says,
“God strengthen me to bear myself;
That heaviest weight of all to bear,
Inalienable weight of care.
All other are outside myself;
I lock my door and bar them out,
The turmoil, tedium, gad-about.
I lock my door upon myself,
And start self-purged upon the race
That all must run! Death runs apace.
If I could set aside myself,
And start with a lightened heart upon
The road by all men overgone!
God harden me against myself,
This coward with a pathetic voice
Who craves for ease, and rest, and joys:
Myself, arch-traitor to myself;
My hollowest friend, my deadliest foe,
My clog whatever road I go.
Yet One there is can curb myself,
Can roll the strangling load from me,
break off the yoke and set me free.”
Though the painting took the statement from this poem, one must understand that the literary origin of this painting doesn’t explain the entire symbolic meaning behind it, as Khnopff never limited himself to the text of the poem. This composition shows a much broader context of the artist’s art and principles. The format of this painting is wide and narrow, as its dimensions are 72 by 140 cm.
Talking about the subject matter of the painting, a young woman sits in a fairly shallow but claustrophobic interior space that does not match up in perspective. On the right side of the canvas, a gray and loner silent city, which might display the inspiration taken by Bruges, is showcased. Directly behind this lady is a view down of a narrow alleyway that recedes precipitously with a white model of a face sculpture over a shelf. One of the most noteworthy elements of this painting is the three lilies at the various stages of openness. The object on which the woman leans is draped in black as if it is a table. But there is a high confusion over this as it is not yet clear whether it is a table or a coffin. According to Leslie Morrisey, it is a coffin, hence the black drape. But Pol de Mont called it a grand piano in 1896, and Yvanhoe Rambosson described it as a simple table.
This artwork shows the early tradition of Flemish painting in several respects, like the view out of the window or a discontinuous spatial composition, and of course, a tough symbolism. Yvanhoe Rambosson described this painting as a symbolist critique. He began saying that the lady in this composition is alone in her chamber with her spleen resting hopelessly on a table covered with a black drape. She is overwhelmed as it is a tomb of dead illusion, which arises at intervals, and this is described by the three torches of sadness displayed through the three lilies at different stages. He further explained,
“The lady allows her whole life to rise in her memory; and the suspicious feature, with its uncertainty and its tortures, closes the horizon of her soul. And the story of the Lady is there, behind her on the wall.”
According to him, the past is represented through the abandoned alleyway with sorrow that things didn’t turn as expected, the present is the head of Pallas diminished by one wing, and the future is round and square portholes opening in the color of absinthe.
The description of Rombosson is literary and filled with melancholy despite some errors of interpretation. Through his account, he described the young woman as a widow, but the elements in the picture do not confirm this. For instance, there is a ring on the woman’s finger and a circular gold ornament hanging from the center broken in half as if the other half is with her husband. When you read the poem by Christina Rossetti, it is explicitly concerned with death, but the suggestion of a bride mourning for her bridegroom isn’t exactly right here. Though the lady is alone, her eyes seek answers, and there is a willful solitude, but she waits for her mystic reunion.
Another point to discuss here is the symbolization of past, present, and future through the three lilies and the background. At first, the right background, displaying a monochromatic landscape of Bruges, can withhold the meaning of showing the past. It must be noted that Bruges was a mastermind in showing a vision of a melancholy, dream-like, and unattainable past, which is why this landscape that portrays a lone figure on the black stalks of a deserted city is compared to that of Bruges. Of this panel, a lily rises before it, which is closed as it is dead or dying.
The central panel represents the present as the woman herself resides at this panel, and her leaning in represents the future. The eyes of the young woman are transfixed into the viewer as if she has another transformation of the sphinx. The lilies before this panel rise, and it is fully open and alive. The broken golden ornament hanging down from these lilies suggests incompleteness. At this same panel, the god Hypnos reigns with an inscription, “That which is the most perfect in this life.” A poppy beside the Hyponos bust speaks of sleep and death, and the blue wing over the god of dreams extends to this young woman. It might represent a dream which is concentrated on personal spirituality. The narrow alleyway adjoining this may represent the external world, which the woman has locked for herself.
The left of the picture pertains to the future, as represented by the lilies, which have begun to blossom but are not fully open. There are two circular mirrors here, which might reiterate the theme of locking one’s self in or might serve as a symbol of the future. Another possibility of this mirror is the purity of the girl as represented in the spotless mirror of the Virgin Mary. Then there is a stylized Art Nouveau wood carving of a lily between the two mirrors which contrasts the enduring permanence of the art with the transitory nature of the real flowers. The black drape might represent death but there is a tiny corner of the clear space at the left end of the table that represents the eventual escape from death’s dominion. Significantly, the woman leans over this escape and her elbow even extends to it.
The entire painting revolves around numerous themes but one thing being clear is solitude and seclusion. There are repeated motifs for displaying this emotion whether a Hypnos head or lily or even a woman leaning on her hand. But the solitude here is willful and not natural. Since the artist had an extremely private life, he knew this theme well, which is why this painting connects with so many viewers. Though it looks mysterious because of the woman’s gaze, several components add to narrating the entire story behind the canvas. To me, there is a possibility that the woman is seeing the viewer to question him/her whether he/she feels a similar feeling of loneliness which she can’t flee from. Sometimes, there are situations that put us in a difficult situation of solitude but there is always militant self-love or narcissism which protects us from the havoc of emotion. This painting well displayed the situation and emotions of several viewers.
Lastly, there is a metaphysical ambiguity of the paradoxes of Indian mythology which might suggest that Solitude can be a dream of the woman in the painting. There is a cult of dreams founded upon the ambiguity of reality and fluidity of perceptions which can only be understood if referred to the other works of the artist. I referred to a book on it earlier in this article and I rest my words saying that if you do like this painting, then there are a lot of other things in Khnopff’s art that you can understand only through the referred book.
Note: For those who don’t know, Hypnos is a god of sleep and dreams who was the brother of Thanatos in classical mythology; both being the children of Night. His importance is well-known in the Symbolist aesthetics.
Resources.
- Featured Image: I Lock My Door Upon Myself by Fernand Khnopff; Fernand Khnopff, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
- The Symbolist Art of Fernand Khnopff by Jeffery W. Howe.
- I Lock My Door Upon Myself: A Novella by Joyce Carol Oates.
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