Ensor usually based his graphics on his own drawings, or derived certain motifs from them. As far as is known, however, Ensor drew few landscapes. In view of the relatively large number of landscape etchings (about 20), it seems as if the artist went straight into nature with the etching plate. Ensor etched a few faces in the woods around…
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Ensor usually based his graphics on his own drawings, or derived certain motifs from them. As far as is known, however, Ensor drew few landscapes. In view of the relatively large number of landscape etchings (about 20), it seems as if the artist went straight into nature with the etching plate. Ensor etched a few faces in the woods around Ostend and made a series of polder landscapes with villages, detached houses or windmills: Mariakerke, Leffinge, Slijkens and Oudenburg. As an etcher after nature, Ensor was especially fascinated by the rendering of the light in the woods and on the polder plain. He etched with small, nervous traits that tremble with tension. His landscapes are characterised by controlled, sparse writing, which gives them an evocative power. According to the author Albert Croquez, who catalogued Ensor's etchings in 1935, the depiction is of an orchard in Oudenburg near Ostend. The Kunstmuseum in Düsseldorf has a drawing with the same scene. The original etching plate from 1886 was reused for Die Insel.
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