James Ensor, 1860-1949 : masks, death, and the sea Cover Image

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James Ensor, 1860-1949 : masks, death, and the sea / Ulrike Becks-Malorny ; English translation, John Gabriel.

Becks-Malorny, Ulrike, 1950- (author.). Gabriel, John, (translator.). Ensor, James, 1860-1949 Selections. (Added Author).

Summary:

It was never a sure thing that James Ensor, the great Belgian painter of macabre and ghoulish scenes, would become a nationally revered figure. He 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, Ensor 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 were, James Ensor can claim a dark and distinctive place in the art histories of the last hundred years.

Record details

ISBN: 9783836560566
ISBN: 3836560569
Physical Description: 95 pages : illustrations (chiefly color) ; 27 cm.
Edition: English edition.
Publisher: Köln : Taschen, [2016]
Copyright: ©2016

Content descriptions

Formatted Contents Note:	Outsider and loner -- Between realism and imagination -- Parade of the masses -- Behind the mask -- Hareng Saur -- satire and caricature -- Baron Ensor -- late fame -- James Ensor 1860-1949 life and work.
Language Note:	In English translated from the German.