James Ensor's "I Bagni di Ostenda" Captures the Dark Side of Summer Tourism

James Ensor's 1899 drawing "I Bagni di Ostenda," held at the Museum of Fine Arts of Ghent, presents a caustic view of summer crowds. The work depicts a beach establishment overrun by tourists in striped bathing costumes, packed onto the sand and in the sea, even clambering over bathing cabins. The scene unfolds in Ostenda, Ensor's hometown and one of Northern Europe's most fashionable seaside resorts of the era, which the artist observed as an early victim of overtourism. Ensor documented and denounced this phenomenon with heavy irony and sarcasm. The composition's chaotic swirl of forms and colors mirrors the disorder he witnessed each summer. Its near-carnivalesque quality echoes one of his signature themes: the carnival of life, in which individuals wear masks proudly and blend among other masks. The drawing is included in a seasonal art feature listing works such as Paul Gauguin's "Due donne tahitiane," Edvard Munch's "Malinconia," Vincent van Gogh's "Notte stellata sul Rodano," Berthe Morisot's "Jour d'ete," Pieter Bruegel the Elder's "La mietitura," Jean Frederic Bazille's "Scene d'Ete," and Frank Weston Benson's "Summer."