Dutch artist. Toorop was partly Javanese but left the East Indies for Holland as a child. In 1882 he went to Brussels, on a scholarship from the Dutch Academy of Fine Arts, and made contact with Les Vingt , which he joined in 1885 . He was influenced by the symbolists Ensor , Redon , and Rops and inspired by contemporary literature, being close to the avant-garde writing circle the Tachtigers and meeting Verlaine and Péladan in 1892 . He also visited London in the late 1880s where he was in contact with Burne-Jones and William Morris , whose socialist sympathies he shared. His Symbolist period was brief but intense, lasting from c. 1889 to 1905 when he converted to Catholicism. His characteristic linear, flat, and decorative style is best seen in his masterpiece The Three Brides ( 1893 ; Otterlo, Kröller-Müller), with its serpentine, coiling composition and exotic imagery with echoes of Javanese art, particularly batik. His admiration of Wagner inspired some of his work which itself approaches the musical in his organization of rhythms and motifs. After 1905 he concentrated on religious works including stained glass.
