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Artistiek

In 1876, he took drawing lessons from the antique and from the live model at the Ostend Academy of Fine Arts. From that period date his first paintings of the sea, the beach and dune and polder landscapes, such as "Dunes" (around 1876), "Fort Napoleon" (1876), "The triumphal carriage" (1877), "The bathing coach on the beach" (1877). In a backroom of the house in Langestraat (now no. 44 - new building New-Helmond), he has his studio, which offers a view of the (filled in) moats and the sea. He mainly paints harbour views and landscapes on cardboard (the so-called carton roses).

Before he went to the Brussels Academy, Ensor painted a series of small-scale paintings on cardboard that he had found in his mother's shop. Looking back, he wrote: "When I was fifteen I painted the surroundings of Ostend from nature. These modest little paintings, painted in oil on pink cardboard, still delight me today".

Oostende