20. Flowers
Ensor also created still lifes featuring flowers, spurred on by his friend and patron Mariette Rousseau. Mariette occasionally sent him a bouquet for inspiration and when he received poppies, their splendour amazed him. He wrote: "The stunning flowers surpass my most intense colours. The vermilion, the black lacquer look like silk and my earlier paintings seem stale and faded to me now. It is a firework with scent bombs. I am in a state of great excitement and the only thing I can do is paint."
In Peonies and Poppies, an explosion of red shades dazzles against a rather pale background. Ensor's passionate strokes makes the poppies in two porcelain vases, one with a heron motif, look fragile and floaty.
Ensor also took to heart Mariette's request to paint appealing objects in the years that followed. Flowers and Butterfliesis a pure stylistic exercise depicting a wide range of colours and nuances. The butterflies fluttering around the space freely and without a care in the world stir the senses.
The work Roses is one of the showstoppers. The colours leap off the canvas. Ensor enjoys these subtle exercises immensely, performing them using oil, watercolour, pencil and pastel. The painting is reminiscent of a poetic litany uttered by the painter 30 years later at a banquet during an awards ceremony:
Noble Rose among all Roses, Rose of hours,
Rose of winds, Proud Rose of English Warriors,
Diamond Rose, Nostalgic Rose from impassioned lands,
Moonstruck Rose, Formidable Rose, Dreaming Rose from Summer
Nights, Rose of poets, Rose, Rose, Rose, always be mine.