In Praise of James Ensor

James Ensor (1860 - 1949) lived most of his life in Ostend, Belgium, at the edge of the sea. He grew up tinkering around his mother's curio shop, surrounded by unusual items, masks, and oddities. Perhaps people wandered into the store on a lazy summer day, finding themselves the new owner of an antique surgical map of the human body, or a floral vase with a hidden chip, a casual purchase by a passerby on a seaside holiday. His father was English, his mother was Flemish, and he traveled not much, just a few brief trips to Paris, London, and Holland. He dropped out of school at the age of 15 to study painting with two masters, going on to art school at the Royal Academy of Art in Brussels. James Ensor was an Expressionistic Superstar. This painting is Flemish Flats Seen From the Dunes (1876), he was 16 when he painted it. 16!

His imagery captured the grotesque and the macabre, the masquerade of society, as he saw it, from the point of view of an outsider/artist. Like in this painting, for example. Masks Confronting Death (1888). The sky groans an oncoming scourge of rain, soon to besiege Ostend. The parade, however, goes on. The townsfold bedecked in Sunday bestness, the finery of their wealth on display, in full regalia. Their faces are concealed, yet unabashed. We see pigs, and other loathsome creatures, with death leading the pack, in a piquant red sun hat. The masks he first encountered in his mother's shop proved to be an enduring presence during Ensor's life, and played a leading role in many of his paintings.

The image to the right is called Laziness, from his Seven Deadly Sins series (1911). It's the sin I am probably most comfortable with committing. This pair snoozes in bed, with a devil perched on the pillow, while workers toil, plowing the land. All seven of Ensor's sins reside at the Ostend Museum in Belgium. Wake Forest University has a nice collection of prints.

The Somber Lady (1881) and The Lamp Boy ( 1880) are earlier works in a more traditional, academic style. The soot and ochre tones are just exquisite. They capture the subtle gestures of the sitters through silhouette and suggestion, with just a hint of color here and there - the somber lady's umbrella, the glint of the lamp from lamp boy.

You can explore more about James Ensor here