"During the 1880s Ensor turned to specifically religious subjects, frequently based on the torments of Christ. They are not
interpreted in a narrowly religious sense, but are rather a personal revulsion to a world of inhumanity that nauseated him.
This feeling , essentially unreligious and misanthropic, was climaxed in the vast ENTRY OF CHRIST INTO BRUSSELS IN 1889( painted in 1888), which depicts the passion
of Christ as the center of an enormous Flemish kermess or carnival symptomatic of the indifference, stupidity, and venality
of the modern world. Here, too, the artist gave early expression to his feeling about a horrible compression of humanity that
denies and destroys the space of the picture. It is indicative of Ensor's bitter humor that he dated this obscene carnival
- which is also his personal Last Judgement-one year in the future.
EXPRESSIONIST JAMES ENSOR
SURROUNDED BY THE DEAD (my title) Posted by Hello JAMES ENSOR
A BANQUET AT CAFE APOLLINAIRE ( my title) Posted by Hello The sense of death was strong in Ensor, manifesting itself in inumerable paintings,
drawings, and prints perpetuating the walking dead of the late Middle Ages and the danse macabre. Skeletons try to warm their
pathetic bones at a stove clearly imprinted " pas de feu. " Death with his scythe mows down the people of Brussels. The artist
in 1888 portrays himself in 1960 as a relatively cheerful skeleton on the verge of complete disintegration. In Skeletons Fighting
for the Body of a Hanged Man, the drama is enacted on a narrow stage reminiscent of Callot and the tradition of the Italian
commedia dell'arte. "
From HISTORY
OF MODERN ART by H.H. ARNASON pub. 1970? (p. 158 )
I hope you enjoy the pretty pictures.
This is my kind of painting. Stuff you can really sink your teeth into!!!
