The Garden of the Rousseau Family
James Ensor (Belgian, 1860–1949)
1885
- Medium
- oil on fabric
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- Framed: 96.2 x 82.6 x 9.3 cm (37 7/8 x 32 1/2 x 3 11/16 in.); Unframed: 75.5 x 61 cm (29 3/4 x 24 in.)
- Culture
- Belgium, 19th century
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Modern European Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Gift of Leonard C. Hanna Jr.
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
This painting depicts the garden of the artist’s close friends Ernest and Mariette Rousseau, with whom he often stayed at their home in Brussels, Belgium. He rendered this view of their garden in a technique of bold color applied with strong, broken brushstrokes. It is not known whether Ensor painted this work from life or memory, but the garden, empty of people, hints at feelings of social alienation, a dominant theme in his work.
