In Brugge / A Bruges

SYMB 6514

It was in 1904 that Khnopff produced the most important series of drawings inspired by the city of Bruges and the memories, distant but vivid and precise, he had kept of the city where he grew up and to which he remained strongly attached.

Here, he drew a view of Minnewater (Lac d’Amour or Lake of Love) and again, we cannot but stress the predominance of water in his work. Khnopff produced two different versions of this theme.

The works are impregnated with an ambiguous poetry, exalting hidden secrets in intense silence. The views of Bruges are petrified dreams and often, the reflection is more present, more real than the original (from Gisèle Ollinger-Zinque, in catalogue 'Fernand Khnopff (1858-1921)', Brussels, RMFAB, 2004, p. 39, 117)

English Translation by Marianne Reynolds (2010)