Wonderfully mad

Everyone knows about the magnetism of Paris and New York in the annals of modern art, but Belgian painters such as Van de Velde, Toorop, Van Rysselberghe, Evenepoel, Khnopff, Rops, Magritte, Delvaux and Permeke are remarkably significant. The galleries of satellite cities such as Brussels (now only two and a quarter hours away from London by Eurostar) always repay study. On the other hand, actual works of groundbreaking art were often executed far away from large urban centres. They were produced in sleepier and more outlandish locations. Aix-en-Provence, Arles and Tahiti will conjure up the names of Cézanne, Van Gogh and Gauguin.

The Belgian port of Ostend is currently conjuring up the unique and outstanding figure of James Ensor (1860–1949). His father was a cultured, multilingual Englishman who failed in business, married beneath himself and took to the bottle — but at least he appreciated his son’s art, unlike other members of the Ensor family, apparently.