Oostende in the Wind.

 The Pulpit. Leon Spilliaert

 Drawing by James Ensor

 De Mangerie, Oostende.

A lovely day out with friend to Oostende to celebrate his birthday. Hopefully-judicious checking on the Internet produced a booking at De Mangerie on the Albert 1 Promenade and the promise of its presence in the list of Top Ten Fish Restaurants in town, lived well up to expectations!! The meal was both wonderfully tasty and aesthetically beautiful and the service, exceptional. I thought it

extraordinary also, that I had an email this morning asking me to rate our welcome, the food and the service, in retrospect. De Mangerie, Oostende, definitely earns a second visit!

 Albert 1 Promenade, Oostende.

This was my fourth or fifth trip to Oostende in as many years and I have never enjoyed it. Always grey and gloomy; generally cold and misty; often with showers or continuous rain. Yesterday, in February, it was cold with a very strong wind but the sun shone, the sea glistened immense and distant, and I could understand why people might go there for a holiday. As in Brugge, out-of-season roadworks and re-laying of cables and pipes seemed everywhere, but even so, Lots of Room along the Promenade for games and fish stalls, couples trying to stroll, leaning against the wind, and children running in circles. It was a photo opportunity of almost summer proportions!

 Interior. James Ensor

After lunch, to the Mu-zee, the local Museum of Modern Art, Oostende’s own MOMA. I had never seen it before and was delighted with the white interior on different levels displaying a number of pictures by Leon Spilliaert, one of the local Masters, and James Ensor, already known and loved in this parish. Coincidentally, there is a Leon Spilliaert exhibition on now in the Royal Academy, a place I love and of which I was a member for countless years. I had never known that Spilliaert was virtually a local boy in Flanders. It is an excellent exhibition in the Mu-zee and I shall keep note of further exhibitions there. I really should explore more of Flanders!

 Self-portrait, Leon Splliaert, 1881-1946

 The Rower. Leon Spilliaert



"To me, the only thing that counts is my individuality; it is everything
to me; I am not so certain that all the other things exist. It is like a
phantasmagoria, when I view the life that goes on outside myself, it
is often with abundant fantasy."
Leon Spilliaert. 1925









"The mask loomed large in the work of Ensor from 1888 onwards. It became
the hallmark of his work and his most notable contribution to modern art
is the integration of carnivalesque iconography into his oeuvre.. In his work,
the mask became an instrument by which to expose human nature."

                   

 James Ensor 1860-1949.
by Rik Wouters.

 

James Ensor; Self-portrait with masks.
1899.