Ides, resident:
In The Baths at Ostend, the characters are either splashing in the water or ogling from the dyke. Except for one person. She has turned away from the beach and is looking straight at us. The critical outsider. This is Ensor’s portrait of Mariette Rousseau-Hannon.
Ensor had known Mariette since his student years in Brussels. He did not get much out of art school there - in fact, he came last in the painting course. Enough for the young artist to be horrified by all those rigid rules for the rest of his life. There were far fewer rules in the home of Mariette Hannon and her husband Ernest Rousseau, which Ensor frequented along with other artists, poets, professors and anarchists. There are even photographs of their fancy dress parties, with Ensor wearing a bearskin.
Was the love between James and Mariette ever more than platonic? That remains a mystery. In any case, she was a loyal friend and he valued her artistic judgement. And for Ensor, that was quite something. She was even allowed to have the copper etching plates printed, which he sent her from Ostend. He also supplied her with mushrooms, as Mariette Hannon was an expert on fungi and had several species named after her. Not bad for a woman at the time, when some people still thought your uterus could shrivel up from too much thinking.