Focus on Pornocrates and explore the Meaning of the work.
Various interpretations for the work exist. The woman can be seen as a powerful female, led by the hog, which can be seen as an image of a man in a bestial, submissive and ignorant state, kept in check by the woman. The pig with golden tail can also be seen as an allegory for luxury, or even as an animal of the devil, a symbol of fornication, steering the woman in blindness. In any case the work represents Rops' vision of the woman of his time: a femme fatale who was increasingly assertive, ruthless and seductive. "She was the human animal viciously depicted by Félicien Rops as "Pornokrates", ruler of Proudhon's "Pornocracy", a creature blindly guided by a hog, the symbol of Circe, the bestial representative of all sexual evil".
The woman and pig are walking on top of a marble stage, with a frieze depicting four allegories of the arts: sculpture, music, literature and painting. The fine arts are depicted as grey, classical male figures, looking desperate. This might be interpreted as the victory of sensuousness and eroticism of the art that Rops and his contemporaries of the Decadent movement created, in contrast with the boredom of the academic art of that era.The title may also refer to the concept of pornocracy, a period in the History of the papacy during the first half of the 10th Century where the Popes were strongly influenced by a corrupt aristocratic family, the Theophylacti. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon published his anti-feminist tract La Pornocratie ou les femmes dans les temps modernes in 1875, three years before Rops worked on his Pornocrates.
An early owner of the work was the Belgian jurist and art collector Edmond Picard. Pornocrates was received with indignation and scandal during the 1886 exhibition of the Cercle des XX, an art group to which Rops belonged.
classical assertive History of the papacy Félicien Rops Circe seductive Cercle des XX fornication marble anti-feminist Edmond Picard luxury academic art Proudhon's Decadent movement blindness allegory pornocracy Pierre-Joseph Proudhon devil femme fatale Theophylacti