Cottages, 1888

Ensor usually based his etchings 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.