2. The Decorative Still Life
Many of the 19th-century still lifes are first and foremost decorative and have no great story to tell. Adorned with an abundance of natural riches including flowers, fruit, vegetables, fish, meat and objects associated with hunting, they mainly enhanced bourgeois interiors. Brussels painter Jean-Baptiste Robie's spectacular still life depicts virtually all these elements together.
Some artists sought a niche to specialise in. They painted flowers, a corner of their studio, richly laid tables or shiny objects ... The trend of Japonisme and Chinoiserie also emerged, not only in Ensor's work.
The still lifes you see here have one thing in common. Indeed, the painters managed to amplify their fascination. Fish eyes, masks and puppets look directly at you and draw you into the work; the scene no longer takes place in a neutral setting, but in a lifelike interior; living figures take the place of petrified images, or rather, the small-scale format was magnified. In a genre that serves experimentation particularly well, this resulted in a visual spectacle, ranging from small gems to grand examples of bravura.