Léon Spilliaert was a Belgian painter best known for his mysterious, Symbolist works. Depicting nocturnal landscapes, windswept beach scenes, and alien portraits, Spilliaert’s oeuvre is united in its consistent fascination with the interior emotional landscape of people. Throughout his practice, the artist emphasized aspects of and stylized his observations of reality so that patterns and moods reoccurred within his varied subject matter. Much like the French painter and printmaker Odilon Redon, Spilliaert often used pastels to create the sense of a dream-like haze, lending his work a distinctive, softened aesthetic.

Born on July 28, 1881 in Ostend, sickly and reclusive, he spent most of his youth sketching scenes of ordinary life and the Belgian countryside. When he was 21, he went to work in Brussels for Edmond Deman, publisher of the works of symbolist writers, which Spilliaert was to illustrate with a special admiration for the work of Edgar Allen Poe. In December 1916, Spilliaert married Rachel Vergison, twelve years his junior. Due to the difficult conditions in Ostend during World War I he planned to leave Belgium, wanting to go to Switzerland to reunite with a group of Pacifists thinkers around Roman Rolland, with whom he was acquainted through Emile Verhaeren. In March 1917 he left Ostend, stayed a while in the suburb of Brussels trying to find money to pursue his trip abroad. The collectors who owed him money did not pay and expecting a child, they decided to stay in Sint Agatha Berchem.

Watercolor, gouache, pastel and charcoal - often in combination - were the means by which Spilliaert produced many of his best works, among which are a number of monochrome self-portraits executed at the beginning of the twentieth century. The present self-portrait at age 46 is the last known self-portrait.[1] As if he came one last time to look at his work. The frontal view, with his gaze smothered in ink, creates a dramatic, ghostly image. The lone figure with stark shadows in a non-descript environment, this self-portrait conveys a sense of melancholy and stillness.

[1] B. Dewulf, op.cit., p. 132