James Ensor

For more information on James Sidney Baron Ensor, visit Britannica.com.

(b Ostend, 13 April 1860; d Ostend, 19 Nov 1949). Belgian painter, printmaker and draughtsman. No single label adequately describes the visionary work produced by Ensor between 1880 and 1900, his most productive period. His pictures from that time have both Symbolist and Realist aspects, and in spite of his dismissal of the Impressionists as 'superficial daubers' he was profoundly concerned with the effects of light. His imagery and technical procedures anticipated the colouristic brilliance and violent impact of Fauvism and German Expressionism and the psychological fantasies of Surrealism. Ensor's most memorable and influential work was almost exclusively produced before 1900, but he was largely unrecognized before the 1920s in his own country. His work was highly influential in Germany, however: Emil Nolde visited him in 1911, and was influenced by his use of masks; Paul Klee mentions him admiringly in his diaries; Erich Heckel came to see him in the middle of the war and painted his portrait (1930; Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz-Mus.); Alfred Kubin owned several of his prints, while Marc Chagall and George Grosz also adapted certain elements from Ensor. All the artists of the Cobra group saw him as a master. He influenced many Belgian artists including L?on Spilliaert, Rik Wouters, Constant Permeke, Frits van den Berghe, Paul Delvaux and Pierre Alechinsky.

See the Abbreviations for further details.

The Belgian painter and graphic artist James Ensor (1860-1949) populated his works with masks, skeletons, and grotesque images of humanity. A sense of existential anxiety dominates his fantastic personal visions.

I was born at Ostend, on Friday, April 13, 1860, the day of Venus. At my birth Venus came toward me, smiling, and we looked into each other's eyes. She smelled pleasantly of salt water." In this imaginative recollection of his birth, James Ensor also described the duality of his art: on the one hand, the fantasies of a humanistically inclined imagination; on the other, the pleasures and terrors observed as a child living in a somber Belgian town whose existence was threatened by the same sea which was its source of life. Before beginning art studies at the Brussels Academy in 1877, Ensor painted the landscape surrounding Ostend - small houses isolated in vast light-flooded spaces. At the academy he began painting imaginative, rhetorical themes; under the influence of Dutch baroque painting and French impressionism he started using a free, divided brushstroke.

After 3 years of study Ensor returned to Ostend to the attic studio above his parents' souvenir shop; he spent the remainder of his uneventful life in Ostend. Using heavy, impasto pigments, he depicted the middle-class interiors in which his family lived. A somber, disquieting air of mystery surrounds the isolated figures as they drink tea, listen to piano music, or sit in melancholy introspection.

In 1883 Ensor became a founding member of the Belgian avant-garde artists' group Les XX, which brought works by contemporary French artists to Brussels and fought for increased artistic freedom from the dictates of official taste. From 1883 until 1887 Ensor painted little but evolved the overtly fantastic images with which his art is generally associated. The carnival masks of Ostend surrounding him in his studio made their appearance in Scandalized Masks (1883) and Haunted Furniture (1885; destroyed) and were joined by numerous skeletons bringing psychotic horror and terror into the bourgeois interiors. The life and temptations of Christ, depicted with the features of the artist, became the subject matter of numerous drawings in 1886; he developed these motifs in his first etchings that year. He created 133 prints, most of them during 1885, 1889, and 1895-1899.

In the etching The Cathedral (1886) Ensor first explored the theme of a mocking, destructive, roving mob. His most noted painting, the Entry of Christ into Brussels (1888), depicts raucous carnival crowds escorting Christ-Ensor into the city, which is decorated with Socialist banners and advertisements for mustard. The massive canvas is a caustic commentary on contemporary Belgian political, artistic, and social values. Even Les XX refused to exhibit it, and during the following years this group continued to reject his controversial work.

Probably Ensor's unique use of Christian imagery rather than his unorthodox painting technique with its impasto surfaces, slashing brushstrokes, and depersonalized images caused his works to be disclaimed by academic and "free" artists as well as by critics. By identifying himself with Christ, Ensor transformed accepted biblical imagery into personal observations on the universal conflicts of innocence and evil, as well as private attacks on his critics; opposition to his own symbolic art thereby became equated with the tortures of Christ's Passion.

Ensor's sole contact with the world around him was through the medium of his art, which reflected the imagery of his eccentric, morose broodings. Even still-life paintings and landscapes appear strangely menacing, imbued with the erotic, sadistic, and self-tormenting qualities of Ensor's narrative paintings. In the smaller and more private scale of his prints and drawings, his morbid demonology attained an even greater psychotic intensity as he condemned humanity and himself to the visual torments of his private inferno.

After 1900 Ensor's imagery became tamer, more a parody than a condemnation of society, perhaps a reflection of the esteem he finally gained in official art circles. To his achievements as a painter, he added those of a writer of essays and plays, reflecting the world of his paintings and prints. A greatly respected and honored citizen of Ostend, Ensor died on Nov. 19, 1949.

Further Reading

The most perceptive analysis of Ensor's work is Libby Tannenbaum, James Ensor (1951). A more subjective approach is by the poet Paul Haesaerts, James Ensor (1957; trans. 1959), which offers numerous color reproductions. For background information see Bernard S. Meyers, The German Expressionists: A Generation in Revolt (1957; concise ed. 1963), and Peter Selz, German Expressionist Painting (1957).

Additional Sources

Ensor, James, Ensor, New York: G. Braziller, 1976.

Gindertael, Roger van, Ensor, Boston: New York Graphic Society, 1975.

Janssens, Jacques., James Ensor, New York: Crown Publishers, 1978.

Lesko, Diane, James Ensor, the creative years, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1985.

James Ensor
James Sidney Ensor, bust, Artist: Edmond de Valériola, Location: Ostend, Belgium
Birth name	James Sidney Ensor
Born	April 13, 1860(1860-04-13)
Died	November 19, 1949 (aged 89)
Nationality	Belgian
Field	Painting
Training	Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts
Movement	expressionism, surrealism

James Sidney Edouard, Baron Ensor (April 13, 1860 – November 19, 1949) was a Belgian painter and printmaker, an important influence on expressionism and surrealism who lived in Ostend for almost his entire life. He was associated with the artistic group Les XX.

Contents 1 Biography 2 Art 3 Influence and legacy 4 Images 5 Notes 6 References 7 External links

Biography

Ensor's father was of English extraction, and his mother was Flemish. A poor student, he left school at the age of fifteen to begin artistic training with two local painters. From 1877 to 1880, he studied at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, where his classmates included Fernand Khnopff. He first exhibited his work in 1881. From 1880 until 1917, he had his studio in the attic of his parents' house. His only travels were three brief trips to Paris, London, and Holland.^[1]

The Rower, 1883, oil on canvas, 79 x 99 cm, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp

During the late 1800s much of his work was rejected as scandalous, particularly his painting Entry of Christ into Brussels (1888-89), but his paintings continued to be exhibited, and he gradually won acceptance and acclaim. In 1895 his painting The Lamp Boy (1880) was acquired by the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels, and he had his first solo exhibition in Brussels.^[2] By 1920 he was the subject of major exhibitions; in 1929 he was named a Baron by King Albert, and was the subject of the Belgian composer Flor Alpaerts's "James Ensor Suite"; and in 1933 he was awarded the band of the Légion d'honneur. Even in the first decade of the 20th century, however, his production of new works was diminishing, and he increasingly concentrated on music—although he had no musical training, he was a gifted improviser on the harmonium, and spent much time performing for visitors.^[3]

Against the advice of friends, he remained in Ostend during World War II despite the risk of bombardment. In his old age he was an honored figure among Belgians, and his daily walk made him a familiar sight in Ostend. He died there after a short illness, on November 19, 1949.

Art

Portrait of James Ensor
by Henry De Groux (1907), Kunstmuseum aan Zee, Ostend, Belgium

While Ensor's early works, such as Russian Music (1881) and The Drunkards (1883), depict realistic scenes in a somber style, his palette subsequently brightened and he favored increasingly bizarre subject matter. Such paintings as The Scandalized Masks (1883) and Skeletons Fighting over a Hanged Man (1891) feature figures in grotesque masks inspired by the ones sold in his mother's gift shop for Ostend's annual Carnival. Subjects such as carnivals, masks, puppetry, skeletons, and fantastic allegories are dominant in Ensor's mature work. Ensor dressed skeletons up in his studio and arranged them in colorful, enigmatic tableaux on the canvas, and used masks as a theatrical aspect in his still lifes. Attracted by masks' plastic forms, bright colors, and potential for psychological impact, he created a format in which he could paint with complete freedom.^[4]

The four years between 1888 and 1892 mark a turning point in Ensor’s work. Ensor turned to religious themes, often the torments of Christ.^[5] Ensor interpreted religious themes as a personal disgust for the inhumanity of the world.^[5] In 1888 alone, he produced forty-five etchings as well as his most ambitious painting, the immense The Entry of Christ into Brussels.^[6] In this composition, which elaborates a theme treated by Ensor in his drawing Les Aureoles du Christ of 1885, a vast carnival mob in grotesque masks advances toward the viewer. Identifiable within the crowd are Belgian politicians, historical figures, and members of Ensor's family.^[7] Nearly lost amid the teeming throng is Christ on his donkey; although Ensor was an atheist, he identified with Christ as a victim of mockery.^[8] The piece, which measures 99½ by 169½ inches, was rejected by Les XX and was not publicly displayed until 1929.^[9] After its controversial export in the 1960s, the painting is now at the J. Paul Getty Museum and is on display at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, California.^[9] Also known as Christ's Entry into Brussels in 1889, it is considered "a forerunner of twentieth-century Expressionism."^[9]

As Ensor achieved belated recognition in the final years of the 19th century, his style softened and he painted less. Critics have generally seen Ensor's last fifty years as a long period of decline.^[6] The aggressive sarcasm and scatology that had characterized his work since the mid-1880s was less evident in his few new compositions, and much of his output consisted of mild repetitions of earlier works.^[10] Significant works of Ensor's late period include The Artist's Mother in Death (1915), a subdued painting of his mother's deathbed with prominent medicine bottles in the foreground, and The Vile Vivisectors (1925), a vehement attack on those responsible for the use of animals in medical experimentation.

Influence and legacy

Death mask of James Ensor.

James Ensor is considered to be an innovator in 19th century art. Although he stood apart from other artists of his time, he significantly influenced such 20th century artists as Paul Klee, Emil Nolde, George Grosz, Alfred Kubin, Wols, Felix Nussbaum,^[11] and other expressionist and surrealist painters of the 20th century.

His works are in many public collections, notably the Modern Art Museum of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels, the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp, and the Museum voor Schone Kunsten in Ostend. Major works by Ensor are also in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Musée d'Orsay, Paris, and the Wallraf-Richartz Museum in Cologne. A collection of his letters is held in the Contemporary Art Archives of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts in Brussels.

The annual Dead Rat Ball is held in Ostend.

Ensor has been paid homage by contemporary painters^[12] and artists in other media: he is the subject of a song, "Meet James Ensor", recorded in 1994 by the alternative rock duo They Might Be Giants. The 1996 Belgian movie Camping Cosmos was inspired by drawings of James Ensor, in particular Carnaval sur la plage (1887), La mort poursuivant le troupeau des humains (1896), and Le bal fantastique (1889). The film's director, Jan Bucquoy, is also the creator of a comic Le Bal du Rat mort ^[13] inspired by Ensor. The yearly philanthropic "Bal du Rat Mort" (Dead Rat Ball) in Ostend continues a tradition begun by Ensor and his friends in 1898.

An exhibition of approximately 120 works by James Ensor will be at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City through September 21, 2009, and will then travel to the Musée d'Orsay, Paris, October 2009–February 2010.

Images

• Masks Mocking Death. 1888

The Japanese filmmaker Hiroshi Teshigahara credits Ensor as an influence and there are scenes in his film Woman Of The Dunes that are clearly reminiscent of The Entry Of Christ Into Brussels.

Notes

1. ^ Farmer, 1976, p. 11
2. ^ Becks-Malorny, 2000, p. 95
3. ^ Becks-Malorny, 2000, p. 91
4. ^ Gindertael, 1975, p. 114
5. ^ ^{a b} Arnason, 2004, p. 95
6. ^ ^{a b} Farmer, 1976, p. 32
7. ^ Becks-Malorny, 2000, p. 48
8. ^ Becks-Malorny, 2000, p. 43
9. ^ ^{a b c} J. Paul Getty Museum. Christ's Entry into Brussels in 1889. Retrieved September 18, 2008.
10. ^ Becks-Malorny, 2000, pp. 87-88
11. ^ Becks-Malorny, 2000, p. 92
12. ^ Mohammed, Nisha. American fundamentalists: Christ’s entry into Washington in 2008. An interview with Joel Pelletier. Rutherford Institute, July 5, 2006. Retrieved September 18, 2008.
13. ^ Flemish newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws, 5 October 1981, Marc Wilmet: "Jan Bucquoy laureaat van het stripverhaal".

References

• Arnason, H.H. (2004). History of Modern Art. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, Inc.
• Becks-Malorny, Ulrike (2000). James Ensor. Cologne: Taschen. ISBN 3-8228-5858-7
• Farmer, John David (1976). Ensor. New York: George Braziller.
• Gindertael, Roger Van (1975). Ensor. Boston: New York Graphic Society Ltd.
• Janssens, Jacques (1978). James Ensor. New York: Crown Publishers Inc.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: James Ensor

• The Royal Museums' Modern Art Collection: 19th C. symbolism, with Ensor's "Skeletons fighting for a smoked herring"
• Exhibition at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Antwerp: "Ensor and the Moderns"
• The Getty Museum: James Ensor
• Flemish Art Collection: James Ensor, Graphic Artist
• "Goya, Redon, Ensor Grotesque paintings and drawings" 2009 Special Exhibition at KMSKA
• 2009 Ensor show at Museum of Modern Art, NYC
• Sanford Schwartz, "Mysteries of Ensor," New York Review of Books, September 24, 2009.

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