Portret van Félicien Rops 1872 - 1934

Armand Rassenfosse made this portrait of Félicien Rops using etching. Imagine the artist hunched over a copper plate, carefully dragging a needle to create thousands of tiny lines! The portrait emerges from a blizzard of hatching, a storm of strokes that both define and dissolve the figure. The marks convey light and shadow, but also a vibrating energy, as if Rops is not simply sitting for a portrait, but radiating some kind of force. I wonder what Rassenfosse was thinking as he made this? Was he trying to capture something about Rops’ personality, or was he simply experimenting with the possibilities of line and tone? Look at the way the lines around the face almost look like electricity, like some kind of halo. Maybe Rops was a difficult character to pin down! In painting, as in printmaking, artists are always in conversation with each other, building on the ideas and techniques of the past, pushing the boundaries of what’s possible.