Entry
The painting depicts various objects from the Far East laid out upon a table. There are articles of clothing lying on the table top; these may be coats. On top of these are a small Chinese teapot; a Japanese wooden mask with unusually large canine teeth; a small, semi-nude male porcelain statue; a bright blue vase in which Ensor placed a Japanese fan with a painted scene; a small Chinese porcelain sculpture of a mythological figure on a lion; a second Japanese fan beneath an open-mouthed Japanese mask; a small yellow and green pot; a completely green porcelain sculpture of a large-eared dog or cat; and a red and blue sculpture of a Chinese mythological figure. At top left, hangs an image-within-an-image of a Japanese wood carving or Ukyo-e of two figures on a terrace.
The background is noteworthy and consists predominantly of a light-brown upper area with a curved, light-blue area beneath. The border between the two areas resembles torn wallpaper.
From the sixteenth century onwards, trading companies – and occasionally secret colonial initiatives by the Dutch or British East India Companies – imported tea, silk, porcelain and spices from China (an East-India Company was active in Ostend between 1722 and 1731 but this successful venture was dissolved as part of the European peace negotiations.) Fascination with Chinese culture in eighteenth-century Europe prompted Chinese decorative motifs and architectural forms to be imitated and adapted into what came to be known as chinoiseries. Ensor used the term chinoiserie for all the still lifes in which he included a variety of objects from the Far East. Ensor always called his still lifes with objects from China and Japan simply Chinoiserie. In this instance, he depicted Chinese tableware and porcelain statues, including the small statue in blue and red of a Chinese deity which he had previously painted in his Large Still Life with Chinoiseries of 1880.
In 1853, a small American war fleet forced Japan to abandon its isolationism and participate in international trade. Soon after this, Japanese art started to be collected and imitated in Europe. Ensor’s mother and aunt, Catharina and Maria (Mimi) Haegheman, ordered objects from the Far East from Siegfried Bing in Paris. We do not know whether Ensor personally owned the objects in this still life or whether he borrowed them from friends, such as the Rousseau-Hannon family. In this still life, he depicted two Japanese fans: the first, a sparsely decorated flat, fixed fan of bamboo and paper; and the second, a bamboo and paper folding fan which could be opened and closed and had visible ribs. He also included a Japanese print and two wooden Noh-theatre demon masks. Ensor had previously used the mask with the striking canine teeth in Accessories in 1902. The mask with the wide-open mouth also played a major role in The Intrigue of 1890.
Over the course of 60 years, Ensor painted more than 230 still lifes, amounting to a third of his painted oeuvre. With the exception of a short break around 1885/88, he painted at least one still life a year. He considered still lifes to be the most important artistic genre and the touchstone of the true colourist
.
In 1889, Ensor painted the first of the still lifes in which he experimented with creating a narrative relationship between the various objects depicted. From 1900 onwards, he would often create theatrical still lifes. This does not appear to have been his aim here despite the expressiveness of the masks and the cat or dog’s head. The curious form of the background creates an illusion of space behind the objects; it is as if the objects were in some sort of cave. Ensor used this background again in Pierrot and Skeletons of circa 1906, in the two other versions of this composition, and possibly for the last time in Skulls with Flowers of 1909(?). It may well be the depiction of damaged wallpaper that actually existed on a wall in Ensor’s attic studio. If so, it might be a criterion for dating other paintings.
After 1900, Ensor painted three versions of these Japanese and Chinese trinkets, which at first glance appear identical. In the hand-written list of paintings and drawings that Ensor gave to Grégoire Le Roy in 1921, he included numerous unspecified still lifes after 1900, as well as 5 chinoiseries
. He provided dates for two of these Chinoiseries: the smallest – the third version of the still life under discussion here – is from 1908
; while he dated the Chinoiseries in the Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens 1907
. The version under discussion here is the largest of the three; it may also be the first. We should perhaps identify it with the Chinoiseries of 1906 that Ensor included in his 1908 Liste de mes oeuvres
.
Therefore, to make these still lifes, Ensor must have staged more or less the same objects in nearly the same manner on a marble-topped table for three years! Ensor rearranged some of the objects for the different versions of these Chinoiseries, making the composition more compact and giving greater prominence to the more expressive objects, which may be an argument for dating the Antwerp version as the earliest of the three. One of Ensor's particular inventions when conceiving pseudo-narrative still lifes was the addition of figures of apparent outsiders looming behind the still life or even intervening in the scene playing out on the table, as if this were a stage
. The Japanese print and the fan take on something of this outsider role here.
When we compare these three Chinoiserie still lifes, not only do we see how Ensor rearranged the objects on each occasion but also how he manifestly changed his own position – the site of his easel – thus, for example, changing the angle at which he viewed of the most noticeable of the masks. More interesting still is the way in which the character of the Chinoiseries is fundamentally altered by fall of the light. Until 1917, Ensor mostly worked in the attic studio at his parents’ home. It had a large south-west facing window – an aspect that painters are typically advised to avoid. But Ensor seems to have enjoyed the surprises brought about by the changing intensity of the light. He painted the largest version in bright sunlight, whereas muted light made the 1907 version seem somewhat more menacing. But perhaps what mattered most to Ensor was the way in which the various ‘types’ of light truly transformed the colour of the objects.
