Forest at Groenendael, 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. When he was in Brussels, Ensor worked in Leopold Park, near the home of the Rousseau family and in the municipalities of Watermael-Boitsfort and Groenendael. The View of the Woods in Groenendael was conceived as a pure study of a forest. In the successive states, Ensor first introduced a seated man in the middle and then a standing man on the far left and three seated female figures. All these operations gave the landscape a completely different character. The comparison of the first and last states illustrates how the pictorial effect of the dry needle diminishes with the wearing away of the burrs, as a result of successive printing.