I battled the throngs of visitors at the Museum of Modern Art this morning to check out the James Ensor exhibition. About 120 of the Belgian painter's works are on display, taken from his most prolific period spanning from 1880-1890's. Ensor was a part of the Belgian avant garde and helped found the art group Les XX. He was a satirist with a penchant for social commentary, scatology, and sometimes even cross-dressing (to serve as a model for his paintings, of course!)
A few of his earlier works on display - tense seascapes and landscapes painted with heavy brush strokes, reminded me a bit of Van Gogh. A couple of pieces featuring subtle touches of Chinoiserie reminded me of Monet's La Japonaise. Still-lives featuring a table-top strewn with vegetables and one with a skate were reminiscent of Manet. It was approximately around the mid 1880's when Ensor seemed to really come into his own distinctive style. Skulls and carnival-type masks really began to feature prominently in his work. I particularly like Skeletons Fighting Over a Pickled Herring (see at link) in which the pickled herring represents Ensor and the two skeletons represent art critics tearing him apart. His skeletal pieces felt very contemporary to me, perhaps because of the emergence of skulls into mainstream fashion a few years back (that emo kids everywhere still seem to be sporting).
For me, this show was a great introduction to an influential Belgian artist! It ends September 21st.
See more info at the MoMa website here.
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