Bibliography
Like the works of the authors whose poetry he illustrated, his work tends to mingle sex, death, and Satanic images. According to Edith Hoffmann, the "erotic or frankly pornographic" nature of much of Rops's work "is at least partly due to the attraction these subjects had for a provincial artist who never forgot his first impressions of Paris".[2]
Rops often combined soft-ground etching—a technique practiced by few artists of his day—with mezzotint or aquatint, and sometimes added hand-coloring to his plates. His etchings were popular, and influenced many younger artists, including Symbolists such as Edvard Munch and Max Klinger.[2]
