In Bruges. A Church 1904

Fernand Khnopff's *In Bruges. A Church* is a drawing with pencil, charcoal, and pastel on paper—a kind of atmospheric dreamscape made with earth tones. I love to imagine him there, on site in Bruges, composing the work, moving back and forth, squinting to see. What if you found yourself in this church? It looks so cold and empty. I want to sympathize with the artist and what it might have been like to create. I can see the push and pull of mark-making, layering, rubbing, erasing and re-drawing. The floor is made up of squares going into space, but then they float forward at the same time. Like the building itself, Khnopff renders the negative space a positive shape. The drawing recalls Piranesi’s etchings of Roman ruins, but is more modern. There’s a quietness, a dreamlike quality, like Symbolist painters such as Odilon Redon, who was obsessed with ambiguity. Artists are always talking to each other, aren’t they? They are in conversation across time, inspiring one another’s creativity.