Acacia, 1888

Ensor usually based his graphics 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. When he was in Brussels, he worked in the Leopold Park, near the home of the Rousseau family, and in the municipalities of Watermael-Boitsfort and Groenendaal. This acacia is still standing in Leopold Park. Ensor combined the tree with ruins, which may have been inspired by the ruins of the abbey of Villers-la-Ville.