THE MAIDENS

Georges Rodenbach

​In 1895 in Paris, a pair of Art Nouveau artist friends, Joseph Rippl-Rónai and James Pitcairn-Knowles, collaborated with the publisher Bing to make two of the very first livres de peintres as a slip-cased set of Christmas books. Bing persuaded the Belgian Symbolist poet Georges Rodenbach (then at the height of his fame) to write a prose poem for each of them, and in response, Rodenbach produced two mini-masterpieces of Symbolism. 

The Maidens was created for the colour prints of Rippl-Rónai, and describes the life arcs of a group of young women as they enter society: luscious art nouveau colours in a dreamlike haze are quietly subverted by the gentle pessimism of Rodenbach's prose poem. It is presented here in a mimotyped translation, conveying the look and feel of the original.