29. Souvenirs
Ensor painted this 1926 work, Souvenirs, for his own pleasure. He brings together numerous objects in an attractive composition, fascinated by their colour and shape. He combines bright shades with pastel colours, creates sharp contours next to softer lines. Themes from earlier works return, but he rearranges and embellishes them with new objects.
In Ensor's late work still life became a pure stylistic exercise. He revisits his heavy, overloaded, almost Baroque scenes, but transforms them into playful, almost frivolous theatres. He was living on his memories, keeping his myth alive. In Souvenirs, his photographic portrait is joined by quite a few objects, some of which we have already come across. For example, the green glass from the painting with the red cabbage. Or the statuette of the Virgin beside the deathbed of Ensor's mother. The masks, flowers, chinoiserie objects and shells all return. At the top there is a bizarre scene: several professors are bent over a dog's cadaver that has been cut open. This refers to Ensor's fervent criticism of vivisection - experimenting on live animals such as frogs and dogs in the name of science.