Pride 1904

James Ensor made this etching, titled ‘Pride’, at some point in his career, using black ink and then adding watercolor. The way the hatching and cross-hatching describe the forms is amazing. It’s all lines, and you can sense him thinking through this whole crowd scene, trying to find the quickest way to describe it all. Look at the marks around the central figure. See how dense the lines are in his coat? The contrast between the heavy hatching and the paler areas in his shirt and face give him real volume and presence. Then compare that to the crazy stuff happening above the crowd, like the skeleton with a scythe or that weird lizard thing! It's like Ensor is layering different visual languages on top of each other, mixing up the real with the absurd. I see echoes of Goya here, or maybe even some of the weirder medieval illustrators. But Ensor’s got his own thing going on, for sure. He’s not afraid to be messy or a little bit grotesque, and that’s what makes him so fascinating.