What If Colours Could Sing? The KMSKA presents A Red that Sings. Masterpieces by Ensor, Wouters and Schmalzigaug

From 11 April to 30 August 2026, A Red that Sings at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp (KMSKA) takes visitors to the heart of Belgian modernism, where colour vibrates, moves and becomes a sensory force. Drawing on the museum’s rich collection and supplemented by a number of exceptional loans, the exhibition shows how artists around 1900 sought new ways to visualise emotion and movement through powerful, vibrant pigments.

“Perhaps you have seen Rubens’ The Adoration of the Magi in Antwerp. I know of no Impressionist painting with red that sings as the red in King Melchior’s cloak.” In 1914 Antwerp artist Jules Schmalzigaug wrote these words to Umberto Boccioni, one of the leaders of Italian Futurism. For Schmalzigaug, colour is not decoration, but a sound, an intensity you can almost hear.

That very idea lies at the heart of A Red that Sings, an exhibition that shows how colour can sing, clash and move, and how painting can become an almost musical experience.

Three key figures

A Red that Sings connects these three great Belgian colourists, as they have never been before in such a visible way: the whimsical universe of Ensor, the futuristic compositions of Schmalzigaug and the inviting domestic interiors of Wouters. Each of them in their own way, sought to break away from the delicate colour palette of the Impressionists. They saw powerful potential in vivid, bold pigments. Their visual language shouts, whispers, laughs or hums. Their colours resonate loudly and stimulate not only the eyes but other senses and emotions as well. The colour red plays a key role here. Not as an isolated colour, but as a kind of leitmotif within a rich orchestra of pigments, in constant interaction with powerful blues, greens and yellows.

“The KMSKA boasts the largest collections of works by Ensor, Wouters and Schmalzigaug. A Red that Sings therefore offers a unique opportunity to display their work together so explicitly for the first time and to reveal the connections between these artists. Thanks to a number of remarkable loans, this dialogue is further deepened.” — Luk Lemmens, Chair of KMSKA vzw. 

A central theme 

It is no coincidence that the exhibition opens with Peter Paul Rubens’ The Holy Family with the Parrot (1614– 1633). The characteristic Rubens red serves as an early, powerful source of inspiration. The exhibition shows how artists such as Henri De Braekeleer and Adolphe Monticelli were already experimenting with a freer, resonant colour palette. With their sharp analysis of colour, they in turn set a new artistic example. Rik Wouters relished the "tiny vermilion whatsits" in De Braekeleer’s work. The other modern colourists also built on this and took that quest for a vibrant, post-impressionist renewal even further. In addition to Rubens and the three colourists, A Red that Sings maps out this cross-pollination with works by artists such as Jean Brusselmans, Willem Paerels and Louis van Lint.

“Throughout the centuries, red has always captured the attention of both artists and the public. It is a colour that leaves no one indifferent. It draws the eye, directs the gaze and evokes emotions. With A Red that Sings, the KMSKA invites visitors to rediscover the compelling power of colour.” – Carmen Willems, general director of KMSKA vzw.

A festival of colour and sound

The idea that colours can be experienced as sounds has been at the heart of modern experimentation since the 19th century. In technical terms, the phenomenon is a kind of synaesthesia: a neurological phenomenon in which multiple senses are stimulated simultaneously. 

Ensor, Wouters and Schmalzigaug demonstrated that colours sing loudest when applied freely and abundantly to the canvas. Art critics even described Ensor’s works as ‘symphonies of colour’. As well as through paintings and drawings, the exhibition illustrates this through a number of significant musical and even contemporary installations. In the screening of Alexander Scriabin’s 1915 composition Prometheus, for example, the colour of the light in the concert hall changes in response to the music.

In terms of form, too, the modernists sought expression and vitality. With undulating, sweeping lines, they set images in motion. Their thin and broad brushstrokes and pencil markings endow the works with a palpable rhythm, a kind of pulse. For the modernists, this whiplash motif or arabesque was a way of creating either momentum or, conversely, stillness. It is no coincidence that the French composer and contemporary Claude Debussy also introduced the arabesque into his music.

“What connects these three artists is their masterful command of rich pigments and rhythmic arabesque lines. In their paintings, pigments are not static matter, but musical forces: a vermilion red that cries out, a blue that chimes, a yellow that shrieks and a green that resounds. In A Red that Sings, colour and line merge into an almost musical experience.” — Adriaan Gonnissen, curator of A Red that Sings. Masterpieces by Ensor, Wouters and Schmalzigaug.

NOTE TO THE PRESS
• The exhibition A Red that Sings. Masterpieces by Ensor, Wouters and Schmalzigaug runs from 11 April to 30 August 2026.
• Images can be found here.
• In the run-up to the exhibition Antony Gormley. Geestgrond, the Gallery Light and the Ensor halls will be emptied and transformed into exhibition spaces for the first time since the museum reopened in 2022. This intervention creates an opportunity to present a wide selection of works from the permanent exhibition Modern Masters in A Red that Sings.
• From the end of May, the exhibition will expand to include a fifth hall, where visitors can immerse themselves in the immersive installation Rainbow (2019) by contemporary artist Nazanin Fakoor.
• To experience colours more intensely, visitors with red-green colour blindness can borrow EnChroma glasses from the information desk for A Red that Sings. The museum has a limited number of spectacles available (for adults, children and as clip-ons), on loan from Optiek Casteur.
• Hannibal Books is publishing an eponymous catalogue to accompany the exhibition.
• This exhibition has also been made possible thanks to the support of the Flemish Government and the Bank of Breda.