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Arts & Communication The riddle of the sphinx revisited

19 -century esoteric revival – featuring Spiritualism and Péladan, real artists were semi-angelic creatures who were
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Madame Blavatsky’s Theosophy – are but a few of the in closer contact with divine knowledge than ordinary
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most famous examples. Today, this second self-image of humans. In his art salons, Péladan called on the new artist
the modern Westerner is generically referred to as New to be “a priest, a king, a mage, because art is a mystery,
Age. The official Western self-image remains the rational the only true empire, the great miracle.” 28(p[144]]) It was
one. However, in private circles, the modern Westerner is their sacred function to create mysterious but tempting
quite often an esotericist, looking for a more intuitive and esthetic forms, through which ordinary people could
emotional sense of meaningfulness, either to complement get a glimpse of divine knowledge that resided within
the rationalistic view of the world or to oppose it. 24(p[415]]-[417]]) themselves. 28(p[144]]-[146]])
The esoteric theories that Khnopff was most drawn In this light, it is interesting to see Caresses as a
to were the teachings of the Rosicrucian mystic Joséphin dialectical synthesis of two of Khnopff’s earlier drawings:
Péladan (1858 – 1918). Péladan was a prolific writer, and his After Péladan, the suprime vice (1885) and An Angel
message – that enlightenment was something everybody (1889) (Figure 3). What is common in both works is their
could attain by themselves – was hugely popular among verticality, which reflects a hierarchical relation between
the Parisian beau monde, especially among those who, like the androgyne and the sphinx. In After Péladan (1885),
Fernand Khnopff, were concerned that the rapid scientific an enormous and threatening-looking, skeleton-headed
and technological advances of their age would rob Western sphinx looms behind a timid and fragile nude human
culture of its soul. From 1892 onwards, Péladan organized figure. In the antithetical An Angel (1889), Khnopffs
yearly art salons, exhibiting works by the new Symbolist depicts a tall human figure, erect and clad in medieval
artists. 27,28 Khnopff was deeply influenced by Péladan’s armor, stroking a smiling sphinx – this time with a tiger’s
writings, and conversely, Péladan saw in Khnopff’s work body – lying at his feet.
the most perfect reflection of his own ideas. In those A few years later, Caresses (1896) presents the relation
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ideas, androgynous human figures and sphinxes, the between the androgynous Oedipus (who is wearing a tiny
protagonists in Caresses, played an important role. silver bra) and the sphinx as so non-hierarchical that the
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The sphinx was a popular motif in 19 -century esoteric
circles. As a hybrid creature, it lent itself to a whole gamut
of possible meanings. The sphinx was seen as the guardian
of occult secrets and a sign of connection with our bestial
and/or mystical nature. 28(p146-47) In his book The great
initiates (1889), the French esoteric philosopher Edouard
Schuré considered the Egyptian sphinx as the supreme
symbol of the mystery of nature, as “before Oedipus, [the
ancient Egyptians] knew that the answer to the riddle
of the Sphinx is man, the microcosm, the divine agent,
who recapitulates all the elements and forces of nature
within him.” In Péladan’s typical bombastic rhetorics, the
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sphinx represented “the initial condition of man, which is
identical to his final condition. It teaches him the secret
of evolution and the secret of bliss … he knows that 1 day
he will reconstitute his original unity.” This refers to a
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Péladian creation myth in which God created humans
as originally androgynous. The angels wanted to impart
divine knowledge to the newly created humans, but as
God realized that this knowledge would be too heavy for
them to bear, he split the androgynous humans into two
sexes. Only after they reunite again, in the distant future,
will they be ready to receive divine knowledge and restore
the conditions of Eden. God sent the angels to Earth to
gradually initiate humanity into his divine knowledge. The
angels mingled with humans and bred a hybrid race, of Figure 3. The painting With Verhaeren, an angel by Fernand Khnopff.
Reprinted with permission from Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main.
whom contemporary artists are the descendants. Thus, to Copyright © 1986 Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main.

Volume 3 Issue 3 (2025) 7 doi: 10.36922/ac.5868