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James Sidney Edouard, Baron Ensor (13 April 1860 – 19 November 1949) was a Belgium Painting and printmaker, an important influence on expressionism and surrealism who lived in Ostend for most of his life. He was associated with the artistic group Les XX.
During the late 19th century, much of Ensor's work was rejected as scandalous, particularly his painting Christ's Entry Into Brussels in 1889 (1888–89). The Belgian art critic Octave Maus famously summed up the response from contemporaneous art critics to Ensor's innovative (and often scathingly political) work: "Ensor is the leader of a clan. Ensor is the limelight. Ensor sums up and concentrates certain principles which are considered to be anarchistic. In short, Ensor is a dangerous person who has great changes. ... He is consequently marked for blows. It is at him that all the Arquebus are aimed. It is on his head that are dumped the most chamber pot of the so-called serious critics." Some of Ensor's contemporaneous work reveals his defiant response to this criticism. For example, the 1887 etching "Le Pisseur" depicts the artist urinating on a graffitied wall declaring (in the voice of an art critic) "Ensor est un fou" or "Ensor is a Madman."
Ensor's 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. 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. Alfred H. Barr Jr., the founding director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, after considering Ensor's 1887 painting Tribulations of Saint Anthony (now in MoMA's collection), declared Ensor the boldest painter working at that time.
Even in the first decade of the 20th century, however, Ensor's 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 Pump organ, and spent much time performing for visitors. 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 following a short illness, on 19 November 1949 at the age of 89.
The four years between 1888 and 1892 mark a turning point in Ensor's work. He turned to religious themes, often the torments of Christ. Ensor interpreted religious themes as a personal disgust for the inhumanity of the world. In 1888 alone, he produced forty-five etchings as well as his most ambitious painting, the immense Christ's Entry Into Brussels in 1889. Also known as Entry of Christ into Brussels, it is considered "a forerunner of twentieth-century Expressionism." 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. 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. The piece, which measures by inches, was rejected by Les XX and was not publicly displayed until 1929.J. Paul Getty Museum. Christ's Entry into Brussels in 1889. Retrieved 18 September 2008. After its controversial export in the 1960s, the painting is now at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.
As Ensor achieved belated recognition in the final years of the 19th century, his style softened and he painted less in the 20th century. Historians have generally seen Ensor's last forty or fifty years as a long period of decline, although noting a few original "superb and poignant" compositions from his later period. One author identified significant works of Ensor's late period such as The Artist's Mother in Death (1915), a subdued painting of his mother's deathbed with a still life of 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. Another stated "He would still paint pictures magnificently vigorous and bold, but they would be exceptions rather than the rule" noting works such as Our Two Portraits (1905), The Deliverance of Andromeda (1925), Port of Ostend (1933) and Ensor at the Harmonium (1933).Janssens, 1978, p. 89-90 The aggressive sarcasm 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. Several still life paintings, void of social, political, or introspective content, stand out among his later works. Ensor turned increasingly to music in his later years, playing the harmonium and even composing a ballet-pantomime in one act, The Scale of Love (1907), complete with an original libretto, sets and costumes. He is known to have stated in later years that he had followed the wrong path in life, feeling that he should have devoted himself to music.Farmer, 1976, p. 31"Janssens, 1978, p. 91"
Mature work (1885–1899)
Later work (1900–1949)
In 1889, Ensor created two highly political etchings. The first, titled Doctrinal Nourishment or, depicts key figures in Belgium—a bishop, the king, etc.—defecating on the masses of Belgium. The second, titled Belgium in the XIXth Century or King Dindon, depicts King Leopold II watching as military figures violently quell a protest. These prints are very rare today because Ensor attempted to remove them from circulation after being named Baron and many others were lost during the war.
The Seven Deadly Sins
Ensor's 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 Mu.ZEE in Ostend. Major works by Ensor are also in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Musée d'Orsay, Paris, the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, 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 Ensor collections of the Flemish fine art museums can all be seen at the James Ensor Online Museum.
Ensor has been paid homage by contemporary paintersMohammed, Nisha. American fundamentalists: Christ's entry into Washington in 2008. An interview with Joel Pelletier. Rutherford Institute, 5 July 2006. Retrieved 18 September 2008. and artists in other media. The Belgian artist Pierre Alechinsky (b. 1927) and noted member of COBRA, painted The Tomb of Ensor (1961) in homage to Ensor, which is now in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. 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 comics inspired by Ensor.Flemish newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws, 5 October 1981, Marc Wilmet: "Jan Bucquoy laureaat van het stripverhaal".
An exhibition of approximately 120 works by James Ensor was shown at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in 2009, and then at the Musée d'Orsay, Paris, October 2009 to February 2010. The Getty mounted a similar exhibition June to September 2014. The Art Institute of Chicago exhibited Ensor's 1887 masterpiece The Temptation of St. Anthony from November 2014 through January 2015, along with other important paintings and etchings. From October 2016 through January 2017, the Royal Academy of Arts in London hosted a major exhibition of Ensor's paintings and etchings, curated by the Belgian artist Luc Tuymans. The black artist Kara Walker painted a controversial work, "Christ's Entry into Journalism", inspired by Ensor in 2017.
The yearly philanthropic "Bal du Rat mort" (Dead Rat Ball) in Ostend continues a tradition begun by Ensor and his friends in 1898.
In the movie Halloween (1978), a poster of one of Ensor's self-portraits appears on the wall in Laurie Strode's (Jamie Lee Curtis) bedroom.
On the 1994 album John Henry by American rock band They Might Be Giants, there is a song about Ensor titled "Meet James Ensor".
The 2024 game "Please, Touch The Artwork 2" is a hidden object game where almost all of the artwork and even some of the game's music are works by Ensor. "Please, Touch The Artwork 2" on Steam
Citations
Works cited
Gallery
Early work (1879–1884)
Printmaking
Ensor was a prolific and accomplished printmaker. He created 133 etchings and drypoints over the course of his career, with 86 of them made between 1886 and 1891 during the height of Ensor's most creative period. Ensor himself recognized that the prints were a key part of his artistic legacy, stating in a letter to Albert Croquez in 1934: "Yes, my intention is to go on working for a long time yet so that generations to come may hear me. My intention is to survive, and I think of the solid copper plate, the unalterable ink, easy reproduction, faithful prints, and I adopt etching as a means of expression."
Honour
Influence and legacy
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 and other expressionist and surrealist painters of the 20th century. As Los Angeles County Museum of Art CEO and Wallis Annenberg director Michael Govan has explained: "James Ensor's signature style—his radical distortion of form, his ambiguous space, his riotous color, his muddled surfaces, and his proclivity for the bizarre—both anticipated and influenced modernist movements from symbolism and German expressionism to dada and surrealism."
(2025). 9780131840690, Prentice Hall, Inc.. ISBN 9780131840690
(2025). 9783775717021, Hatje Cantz. ISBN 9783775717021
Further reading
External links
Categories: 1860 Births, 1949 Deaths, 19th-century Belgian Painters, Belgian Male Painters, 19th-century Belgian Male Artists, 20th-century Belgian Painters, 20th-century Printmakers, Artists From Ostend, Royal Academy Of Fine Arts, Brussels Alumni, Belgian Barons, Belgian Expressionist Painters, Belgian People Of English Descent, Belgian Printmakers, Belgian Satirists, Satirical Painters, Belgian Humorists, Belgian Fantasy Artists, Belgian Political Artists, Belgian Symbolist Painters, Members Of The Royal Academy Of Belgium, Modern Painters, Belgian Atheists, 20th-century Belgian Male Artists
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