At the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts he received more traditional training. His art education in Ostend had been limited and traditional. The many masks in the shop and the apartment above provided Ensor with his most compelling subject, one that make him famous.Įnsor studied fine art in Brussels from 1877 to 1880. The family ran a gift, curio and seashell shop. More than a little of this attitude seems to have been adopted by his son. It seems the set-back left him increasingly resentful of narrow materialism and limited intellectual scope of Ostend. He had hoped to start a new life for the family in the USA but his foray across the Atlantic coincided with the Civil War and he had to return. Ensor revered his father, whom he described as exceptionally intelligent, handsome and athletic. He met his future wife while on holiday in her native city. His mother was Belgian and his father English. This book illustrates paintings and photographs, giving an account of major events and relationships, with lengthy quotations from letters and press articles.Įnsor was born in Ostend in 1860. Ensor is a significant artist in the development of Post-Impressionism and the foundation of Expressionism and has gone to be one of the most influential of Belgian artists. No other work depicts the notion of belgitude so aptly as The Entry of Christ into Brussels in 1889, and yet the painting can in the first place be regarded as a somewhat quirky but striking representation of Ensor's vision of humanity.Xavier Tricot, Ensor scholar and author of his catalogue raisonné, has written James Ensor: Chronicle of His Life, a summary biography of James Ensor (1860-1949). Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles), The Entry has acquired cult status. Since the purchase of the work in 1987 by the J. Few explanations can accommodate the full daring and frenzy of such a painting which chaotic composition and barbaric style seem revolutionary, and look far beyond the early twentieth century.

Before and during World War I, Fauvism, Cubism, Futurism, Expressionism, and Dadaism all came into being.

Between 18, a veritable revolution had taken place in the visual arts. Until then it had been seen and was known only to a limited group of visitors and insiders. Needless to say, therefore, that the exhibiting of Ensor's work in 1929 was for many a revelation. It is only forty years after its completion that the monumental canvas was first publicly exhibited at the James Ensor retrospective at the Brussels Palais des Beaux-Arts in 1929. The work is one of the most complex paintings ever painted. During 1889, Belgian artist James Ensor (1860-1949) painted a monumental canvas that would be his magnum opus : The Entry of Christ into Brussels in 1889.

James Ensor by Xavier Tricot