HOLOGRAM

Who would I be if I hadn’t been born in Ostend?

I would never have known the sea that flows through my life. 

I wouldn’t have wandered the streets like a sleepless fool. 

I would never have discovered the beauty of a desolate seafront. 

I wouldn’t have seen the fishermen setting out and the women waiting for their return. 

I would never have put the darkness in my soul onto paper.

I wouldn’t have admired the Kursaal or listened to the silence in the galleries. 

I wouldn’t have felt the wind on the pier that embraced me and gave me direction. 

I would be a stranger to the trees in Leopold Park. 

As a child, I would never have felt the shock in my soul when seeing Ensor’s paintings.

It is here, in Ostend, that I felt I wanted to be an artist. This is the place where I learned to be alone, to observe and listen. Where I found the inspiration to draw my dreams and thoughts. I’ve wandered and contemplated/pondered here for hours. I was searching for myself and found the light of Ostend.

But now the wind is blowing towards Brussels. Tomorrow morning my wife Rachel, my daughter Madeleine and I will take the first train. Before we move, I want to bid farewell to Ostend, to walk through its familiar streets one last time, and breathe in its salty air. Just a last goodbye to my hometown.

1: Tourist Information Office 

Breathes in and out

Heaven. Man, that feels good. That air. That salty, wild Ostend air. Breathe it in, Léon. You won't find that in Brussels. No more sand or sea in the wind, just soot and industry. This is the way it has to be. Our Madeleine can play the piano so well. In Brussels, she'll learn from masters. Her mother, my Rachel, is right. The virtuosos are there. Our daughter will become even better.

Thank goodness. Of all the things she could have inherited from me – my insomnia, restlessness, nervousness – who would have thought I'd pass that on? My incurable artist's soul. It turns out to be contagious. Let’s hope she will be a better student than I was. Ah, Ostend, you make me melancholic. I have been happy here. But damn it, also unhappy. You flow through my art like the sea. I'm going to take you with me. To Brussels. Like the sand from the beach that you find in your shoes years later.

Come on, Léon. Where to go? Where I used to live as a young lad? And to the galleries… how many times have I wandered there at night like a sleepless madman? And the sea, of course. I can't leave Ostend without seeing it one more time. I need to hear the waves roar and let the wind rage through my head. Ah, right. I should take a loaf of bread for my Rachel. So…off to the city, sea, and then the bakery.

Enough dawdling. Come on, sea legs. Come on, old body. This might be the last time here. Off we go!

2: Kapellestraat

Did we really cram in here with nine people? It's half a miracle we didn't strangle each other. Me, the oldest of that unruly bunch. All in all, I lived here for more than 20 years, above my father's hair salon and perfumery on the ground floor. Next to my great-uncle Emile's umbrella shop. He also painted landscapes. He taught me how to do it. And my father, I can still see him standing here, displaying hairstyles and creating scents. A master of his craft. So good that even the king had those scents delivered to his court. Was my father an artist too…? Crazy that I'm only realizing that now. Not with paint or ink like Emile or me; my father was a scent artist, and his masterpiece was the Brise D’Ostende. The scent of Ostend. My father even had me make a design for it. My first paid job. Brise d’Ostende. I can still smell it when I close my eyes.

And my mother. A quiet soul. Like me. A melancholic. Like me. And deeply religious... Not like me. It's strange what you inherit from your parents, but it's even stranger what you find within yourself. The love to create, I got from my father. The love for silence comes from my mother. But the drawing... that didn't come from them. My mother said I could draw before I could walk. Whatever was in my head had to be put on paper. That darkness, I didn't get from my parents either, I found that myself. I tried to figure out why I felt the way I did, I sought myself in my self-portraits, I drew myself in the mirror, at the easel, in the rooms of our house. But when do you find yourself?

I've moved far too many times in my life. Sometimes because the light fell on a street so beautifully. Sometimes from one city to another. Sometimes because the roof leaked, but mostly because there was no other choice. I couldn't settle in my mind, so where else could I? I had to keep moving. But now that I know I'm leaving Ostend, I could stand here for hours.

3: Our Lady's College

I've often thought and even written: 'At school, they stole my soul, and I never got it back.' Hours and hours I spent here, what a waste of time. I preferred drawing in my sketchbooks. Most of the teachers got a place in my book, as caricatures. Mister Big Nose of mathematics. Mister Curly Mustache of history. Even on my way home, I drew people I saw every day: the crooked priest, the lawyer with his fancy hat. I did learn something during that time: drawing and observing. But good notes for that? I never got.

It was here that I started to read. Really read. 'A poem is a mystery to which the reader must find the key,' wrote Stéphane Mallarmé. I was immediately hooked. Because when you read, you explore unknown horizons, other worlds. You're suddenly in the middle of it. Just like when you look at a painting or a drawing. You wonder what it means and what it has to do with you. That is art. I've known many writers and poets, and I was always impressed. I wrote poems myself as a young guy. Fortunately I destroyed them, so no one can read them now. The poetry lies more in my images than in my words. Though it took a long time for anyone to notice that.

Why I wanted to go to art school at eighteen, I still don't understand. I thought maybe I would finally be free after those years at the college. What a disappointment. I had to depict reality. It is what it is and nothing else. So classic, so oppressive. I didn't last even a year. I wanted to show what was inside me, how I felt, and get that out. That was reality to me.

4: Leopold Park 

My feet work like a compass. They always point towards parks and nature. If only I had my sketchbook with me now... I'm itching to capture the tree trunks on paper, to translate the beautiful script of the branches.

And at home, that untamed nature mixes with my untameable mind and something... twisted... comes out of my pen and brush. Like the trunk of a willow tree. Gnarled but pure. Is there actually anything more beautiful in the world than a tree?

It's good to know that I will be able to walk in Leopold Park all my life. If not in Ostend, then in Brussels. The trees in Brussels will still know me. That sad fool. How long has it been...? Thirty years already since I got lost in love there.

In a letter to Edmond, I once swore that I would never marry. Edmond Deman. The right man in the right place. A publisher of artists in Brussels. He was used to oddballs/ special characters. Mad people like me (laughs). Like Emile Verhaeren. A great poet and an even better friend. Emile was one of the first to buy a work from me. He and Edmond believed in me. Oh Edmond, he even had me illustrate books (laughs). "Just throw those drawings in the trash," I wrote to him I couldn't depict other people's dreams: I already have too many of my own.

Where did the time go? I gained some success and recognition in Brussels, my father became vain, telling everyone in Ostend that I was an artist. It wasn't great fame, but it was something. In matters of love however, there was nothing. I didn't know what to do with myself. I had to get away from there. I almost jumped on a boat to Congo. But my health didn't allow me to. Or was it fate?

And what does a romantic failure do then? If he can't find love here and can't escape to distant lands? He goes to the city of love. He goes to Paris.

Come on Léon, keep walking before you take root here. Then again, you might be better off as a tree than a melancholic love loser.

5: Petit Paris 

Paris. Even before the Great War, it was already a powder keg. The anarchists and socialists were angry and wanted change. Strikes and riots everywhere. Maybe they were right. The bohemians in Montmartre had nothing, just empty stomachs and thirsty throats. I saw a lot of things there, still I preferred to be on my own. Walking along the Seine. They call it the City of Light for a reason: the endless streetlights along the boulevards at night. And the red lights of the Moulin Rouge, of course. There was a dancer they called 'the Glutton' who, during the cancan, could knock your hat off with her right leg while downing your drink with her left hand in one go. Or so they say. Crazy times.

There were plenty of artists. Who was there? Max Jacob, the writer and painter. And Picasso, of course, he was my age. We exhibited together and made a bet: 'whoever sells a painting first has to buy the other dinner.' He still owes me that dinner, by the way. Clovis Sagot was going to sell our art in his gallery. Before that, he had been a circus clown. The number of works he sold... it was hilarious allright.

Then there was Emile Verhaeren, the poet, my oldest friend. We had a great time together in Paris. But he always used to be so impatient. It cost him his life, damn it. He had an accident on his way to Paris... he jumped on board before the train had stopped at the platform, lost his balance... Oh Emile. I lost my best friend only a month before my wedding to Rachel.

After the war, Paris had changed. America had come onto the scene. Cocktails, jazz, the foxtrot. The artists were no longer hanging around in Montmartre but in Montparnasse. Fortunately, I always sold something when I went. To a police commissioner, of all people, Léon Zamaron, a serious collector; he owns 32 of my works. The lights of Paris, they did help me out of the darkness a bit.

6: Drie Gapers - Promenade - Galeries 

The seafront is unsoiled only during nighttime. No people and no cats outside. Just the promenade, the sea, the night, and me. It's also a matter of necessity; I can't sleep anyway. And if you never sleep, you start dreaming when you're awake. And what I dream, I draw. What else? It helps that the world is empty at night. No beachgoers, no hustle and bustle. At least there's space to breathe and work. And then I create my own world ... then it is my world.

How many hours I’ve walked, at night, during the day, it's beyond counting. James Ensor said that he couldn't step outside in Ostend without running into me. I could also turn it around, James. Walking is necessary to gather impressions. And also to be impressed. When I walk somewhere and the light is just right, I want to move there immediately. Like I always have a suitcase ready to travel. Where to, I don't know yet, just as a precaution, in case I do figure it out.

I can wander for hours. Until I feel the bustle starting again. Then I go home. I've learned to be alone here in Ostend. That's why I sometimes paint people who are also alone. People on the beach or on the promenade, standing alone in front of that immense sea. Or maybe in front of life itself. Your life is only yours. Of course, you need other people, but you have to handle it yourself. You have to learn it yourself.

When I stand alone under the galleries, I clap my hands, and then I don't feel alone anymore. That echo ... it’s so powerful. The galleries clap along. It's better to be alone and feel accompanied than to be in company and feel alone. I've learned to be my own company. Are you less lonely then? I’m not sure.

7: Umbra

Here I am again, walking like a shadow in the night. The darkness. It has settled in me. It appeared when I fell ill as a child and it has always stayed with me. Like a lover you don't like but who never leaves you. A loner like me is glad to have someone with him. Even if it's despair. It became my muse. Simply because I had no other muse.

Was I too romantic, perhaps? Disappointed... that I certainly was. Love was not as I had imagined it. No one shared or understood my feelings. It remained a deep longing I cherished. And rejection... that became the pitch-black ink on my paper: I depicted women as predators, angels of Evil, black shapeless phantoms. And they were always alone. In a desert of emptiness. Just like me. Desperate.

I have spent years bringing that despair to paper. I did it in The Absinthe Drinker and in my self-portraits. She is the woman in Vertigo. A distraught phantom on a staircase looking at the depth before her. That’s how I felt too. Endless black. With only a staircase leading deeper. Until you’re so far from the sun that you can only feel dizzy in the dark.

In the middle of the night, it seems as if it will remain dark forever. But then there she was, the sun. My Rachel. And later our Madeleine. I had sworn I would never marry. I’m glad I broke my promise. My new muse is not in my head. She stands beside me. I draw her. My family. Sometimes I even use more color.

That despair. That darkness... I will leave it here. And the light... I will take it with me. To Brussels. Wherever I go.

8: Kursaal 

The Kursaal. The jewel of Ostend. Here, for the second time in my career, I dared to exhibit in my hometown, alongside Permeke. My very first exhibition in Ostend was at the Galerie d'Art Moderne, also with Permeke and with James Ensor.

The great James Ensor... as a child, I had already seen his paintings. I never forgot them. It was a shock to my soul. Perhaps that’s why I became an artist?

It wasn’t easy. So much disdain in this small town. In Brussels, Paris, Venice—I had already exhibited there. But never at home, here in Ostend. At home, you are more vulnerable.

And appreciation can take a long time. Especially if you are different from the rest. As Nietzsche put it: the further you soar, the smaller you appear to those who cannot fly.

Fortunately, there were always people who believed in me. Like my good friend Henri Vandeputte. He lived four lives. Poet, writer, seeker of happiness, and... gambling addict. To think he was appointed director of the Kursaal... I think he himself benefits more from roulette than all other gamblers combined. We’ve known each other a long time. He exhibited my work in Paris and later here at the Kursaal. Previously, he had been to America; he took some of my works as luggage. The American Dream? More like a jack of all trades, master of none. Oh, it wasn’t without reason he went to America: he still owed 100,000 francs to the Monte Carlo casino.

A year ago, he was dismissed as director. Maybe it was for the best. He asked me to write a letter declaring that my works he had in the Kursaal were indeed his. There were 37 of them. Later I heard that this was just a modest part of my works in his collection. Henri. It is thanks to people like him that one emerges from the shadows. And sometimes you just need a bit of luck. Like at roulette.

9: Fishermen's Quay 

I may grow old, become mole-blind and deaf: I would still know that I am at Fishermen’s Quay. I could probably still draw it too. I saw the people here toil and sweat and clap and gossip and work and keep going and dawdle and complain and navigate and live and suffer. All through my attic window... in my rented studio.

When I looked to the left, I saw the fish market; to the right, I saw the women on the quay, or a fish cart or... another artist. I wasn’t the only one who found inspiration here. When no one knew him yet, Constant Permeke even took over my rental contract for the studio. The ways he paid for it... When he still owed me money, he paid with a painting. I took it and gave it to my Madeleine. I once made a portrait of Constant and gave it to him. But he didn’t like it. He sort of hid it. When someone would ask about it, he would reluctantly show it. People liked it; he couldn’t handle that, so in the end he trampled it with his clogs. Temperament, huh. But otherwise... a good friend. Gust De Smet was also here. He liked to paint real life: fairs, little cafés, village life, and of course the fishermen.

‘Three “expressionists” at the Fishermen’s Quay’, is what the art critics called it now. Oh well. I never participated in a movement. I am not a painter. I use pencil, ink, watercolor, chalk, gouache, charcoal. Everything, really. I look at the world and dive into my fierce, twisted mind and when I come out, I have put everything on paper. Is that “expressionism”?

I tried to do justice to the people I saw from my attic window in my works. They deserved it. I hope I succeeded. I cared about them. I saw the fishermen’s wives waiting for hours on the quay for men who never returned. I saw the skippers toiling. I saw, felt, and drew a lot there in that attic room.

Time to leave the past behind, Léon. Hoist your anchor. On to new destinations.

10: Western Stretch Dam

Ostend, it’s everything in one. It is the end and the beginning of the world. It depends on where you look: from the seafront or from the sea. And the sea, how it suddenly changes color... From airy blue to ink black, to pink and orange, or gray like an oyster shell.

You can keep looking at it; it’s always different. Sometimes it is eerily calm and as flat as a carpet.

Until suddenly everything shifts: the waves crash against the pier, the wind wants to grab you and pull you along. That’s when I feel that I’m alive.

And sometimes, when you’re standing somewhere, you just don’t want to think. You don’t want those thoughts and images in your head. You’d like the wind to just blow through your head, to sweep everything away for a while. And sometimes, very rarely, that works.

I have walked so much through Ostend and watched and drawn it from every angle. Yet, I keep discovering beauty over and over. Just like the sea, Ostend is always present. You hear everything, you see everything. From the posh folks in those bright hotels, to the fishermen and sailors in the dark cafés. The dunes where you hear nothing but the wind, the center where you find everything except peace. I don’t know a city like Ostend, and I wouldn’t want to. There really should only be one.

It’s time for me to go back. To my Rachel and Madeleine. This will be the last time I come home with the salty wind still on my clothes, the laughter of the seagulls still in my ears, and the sand in my hair. The last time I go to sleep while the city is waking up. The last time Rachel is about to ask me where I’ve been, and I’ll tell her about the echo in the galleries, about Ensor and his hat that I saw slip around the corner, about the baker who was already at work and the smell of fresh bread that awakened the street, right, a loaf...

Before I leave. One last deep breath. Filling my lungs with the salty air. The brise d’Ostende. The breeze of Ostend. I’ll take it with me and breathe it out in Brussels (a breath in).

Well, Ostend, take care. It is time to inspire the next sleepless fool.