Still Life with Blue Jar

The year 1890 sits in the middle of Ensor's boldest decade, when he was filling large canvases with jeering masks and skeletons that scandalised even his own allies. This quiet tabletop is the other side of those same years. He had grown up above his family's souvenir shop in Ostend, among shells, china and bric-a-brac, and an arrangement of such objects was his natural place to work out colour and light. A blue jar anchors the group, cool against the warmer tones around it, while a few humbler things gather at its side. The brushwork is loose and sure, more taken with how light settles on each surface than with telling any story.