Els, resident:
The baths at Ostend is crammed with cavorting figures, with everyone engrossed in a different pursuit. We see bare bottoms galore, doggies at it doggy style, a man peering perilously deep into a bucket. It is somewhat reminiscent of Bruegel’s Flemish fairs and other crazy scenes, and that’s no coincidence. Indeed, Ensor was a great admirer of the old Flemish master. Bruegel also enjoyed creating paintings that were literal illustrations of proverbs; remarkably, one painting illustrates a total of eighty proverbs.
Could it be that Ensor was also trying one out here? A man allows himself to be led by the nose, both literally and figuratively. That’s the translation of the Dutch saying, but it’s more likely that it referred to a French saying. (Ensor could speak the Ostend dialect fluently, yet spoke and wrote more often in French)
Piquer une tête roughly translates as ‘to take a dip’, but literally, of course, it also means to pinch a face. For example, take a look at a postcard with which Ensor was familiar from his mother and aunt’s souvenir shop. It uses the same play on words: ‘Danger de piquer une tête’. It could well be a double entendre.