Fernand Khnopff

Fernand Edmond Jean Marie Khnopff (12 September 1858 – 12 November 1921) was a Belgian symbolist painter and one of the founding members of the avant-garde group Les XX in 1883. His paintings often depict isolation, desire, and the dual image of woman as femme fatale and angelic ideal, a recurring theme in symbolist art. His sister Marguerite was a frequent subject, appearing in numerous portraits throughout his career.

Khnopff had close ties to British Pre-Raphaelitism, befriending Edward Burne-Jones and other British artists, and from 1895 was Brussels correspondent for the art journal The Studio. His work, particularly Caress of the Sphinx (1896), influenced the Vienna Secession and Gustav Klimt after Khnopff exhibited 21 works at the Secession's first exhibition in 1898.

Khnopff also designed theater sets and opera costumes, working with director Max Reinhardt and on productions at Brussels' Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie. From 1900, he designed a home and studio in Brussels around his motto "On a que soi" (One has but oneself); the house, inspired by the Vienna Secession, with a golden circle inscribed on the white mosaic floor of the studio, was his "Temple of the self" until his death in 1921.