De gierigheid 1904

This is 'De gierigheid', or 'Avarice', made by James Ensor in 1904. I can just imagine Ensor hunched over a plate, carefully scratching and biting into the metal. His vision is truly terrifying. It’s all feverish marks, stains and angry hatching, swirling with these grotesque figures in a palette of sickly greens, bloody reds, and dirty yellows. Ensor's got a clown getting hammered, while his pals are counting the coins and this monster is on standby. It's like he's saying greed isn't just ugly, it's a total horror show. The faces! The textures! They scream and scratch their way into your brain. When I look at Ensor, I think of other masters of the macabre, like Goya or Bosch. And you feel like it all stems from the same raw nerve, this ongoing conversation between artists reaching across centuries. Each one, in their own way, trying to capture the darkest corners of human experience. Painting is a way of working through, and coming to terms with, all that stuff you can't put into words.