Door de eeuwen heen 1894

Fernand Khnopff created this pastel drawing, *Door de eeuwen heen,* which translates to *Through the Ages*, around the turn of the century in Belgium. In it, we see two female figures face to face, seemingly locked in an intense, intimate exchange. Khnopff was part of the Symbolist movement, which was consciously opposed to the realism of the mid-19th century. Instead, Symbolists sought to create an art that expressed subjective emotion and mystical ideas through a dreamlike visual language. The rigid, idealized features and static poses give the drawing an air of timelessness. The title suggests an encounter between women from different historical periods, perhaps questioning the conventional gender roles in modern society. To really dig into this artwork, it helps to look at the artist's personal writings, the artistic manifestos of the period, and the exhibition reviews of his time. Art, after all, is inseparable from its historical moment.