James Ensor
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James Ensor
A Belgian of British origin, James Ensor (1860-1949) is without doubt one of the most complex artists of the second half of the nineteenth century. Without masters or disciples, the completely independent artist broke free from the era's artistic currents as he shifted cultural markers and tested the boundaries of visual arts. When he painted his first pieces, Impressionism reigned over Europe. In the same way as Van Gogh, Gauguin and Munch, James Ensor offers a radically novel vision without equivalent in the modern art of the late nineteenth century. Although James Ensor draws his inspiration from the Bible and historical writings, scholarly reference books and popular magazines, his own fantasies constantly feed his visual language. Unquestionably, carnival masks and skeletons have become his emblems. The concurrently enigmatic and prolific artist drew, engraved and painted still lives, portraits, landscapes, caricatures, as well as fantasy and religious scenes. A true anarchist at heart, he broached satirical, political, religious and historical themes with equal ease. Articulated like a biography, this book based on excerpts from unpublished letters offers an insight into the unusual life of an artist and his greatest masterpieces.
James Ensor
James Ensor~ISBN 3-7757-1703-X U.S. $60.00 / Hardcover, 9.5 x 11 in. / 288 pgs / 130 color and 110 b&w. ~Item / March / Art Reason is the enemy of art. --James Ensor
James Ensor, 1860-1949
It was never a sure thing that James Ensor, the great Belgian painter of macabre and ghoulish scenes, would become a nationally revered figure. James Ensor was unusual in many ways. Apart from his training in Brussels, he spent his entire long life in Ostend, seemingly the opposite of cosmopolitan. Later on he was expelled by the group Les XX for a particularly controversial canvas: The Entry of Christ into Brussels, which he had painted in 1889. An expressionist before the term was coined, he used the iconography of masks and skeletons to point up the essential horrors of life, and often underwrote his images with a sardonic gallows humour. It has been said that he appropriated the subject matter of a Bosch or Bruegel and revisioned them using the techniques of Manet or Rubens. But this is to diminish his own unique take on both art and experience. A genuine maverick in the way that so many Belgian artists are (lest we forget Magritte), James Ensor can claim a dark and distinctive place in the art histories of the last hundred years.