Hamid, resident:
Check out the man with his arms raised, wide open. He seems to be having a good time, but look closely at the original. The woman next to him is pulling off his wig, and he grabs her bosom out of sheer horror. Ensor at his best once more. By the way, does the scene remind you of something? Gen Z will not recognise it, but The Baths at Ostend once featured on the Belgian 100 franc note. And this amusing detail was clearly visible in the centre.
And what a fine tribute it was, but because of the State it came a bit late. When Ensor drew and painted The Baths, he was not yet appreciated by the masses. His masks were a bit too bizarre, the colours a bit too brash, the humour a bit too flat. Ensor is now our hero in Ostend, but when he exhibited here at the Kursaal in 1894, hardly anyone showed up. Ensor loved Ostend, but was angry with the Ostend locals.
Mind you, you shouldn’t always believe our James. He liked to play the part of the misunderstood artist. For example, one thing we know about his great masterpiece, Christ’s Entry Into Brussels, is that although he was invited to exhibit it, he always looked for an excuse not to do so. For decades, he preferred to leave it hanging in his own living room. Ensor made up a wild story that it was always rejected by the halfwits of the art world, but that’s a myth. He just couldn’t part with it.