Felicien Rops: Laboratory of Desires

A master of Belgian Symbolism, rediscovered. 

Félicien Rops’s (1833–98) erotic works remain provocative today―in the nineteenth century, they transgressed every boundary of art. With a keen eye and a sharp pen, Rops exposed the hypocrisies of the respectable middle class. “I am Rops, and I wish to be no other!” he declared and adhered to this maxim throughout his life.

The most poisonous berry of Symbolism, a scourge of the bourgeoisie―many terms have been used to describe Rops’s radical art. Celebrated by writers such as Charles Baudelaire and Joris-Karl Huysmans, he was a transgressive figure who deliberately aimed his works against the double standards of bourgeois society. His pictures, which represent a high point of printmaking and draftsmanship from the period, invite a critical examination of fin-de-siècle social attitudes, particularly with regard to gender roles.

Jonas Beyer has been a curator at the Kunsthaus Zürich since 2018. 

Daan van Heesch has been director of the graphic collection at the Royal Library of Belgium in Brussels since 2020.