De gulzigheid 1904

This is 'De gulzigheid', or 'The Gluttony', made in 1904 by James Ensor, and it's an etching, so the image is made up of thousands of tiny lines. Think of it as a drawing with acid. The colors are like something from a slightly-off children's book, a little sickly, a little sweet. Look how the etching lines create texture everywhere. The food looks like it's about to crawl off the table, the bodies melt into each other, and even the lines of the tablecloth seem alive. It's a party of the damned. The way Ensor uses line and color reminds me of Goya, but with a touch of the grotesque humor you see later in someone like Philip Guston. Ensor isn't trying to make something beautiful, he wants to get under your skin. He’s reminding us that art, like life, is messy, absurd, and often deeply unsettling.