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Historical Artist - James Ensor (1860 - 1949)
James Ensor was a Belgian painter and printmaker who had an important influence on
expressionism and surrealism. James Ensor lived in Ostend for almost his entire life. James
Ensor’s focus on morbid subjects such as skulls and corpses in his early work incited
criticism from the public. Although his paintings became more traditional later in his life,
Ensor is noted for those earlier paintings because of their significance in the transition from
Symbolism to Surrealism.
James Ensor's father was of English extraction, and his mother was Flemish. He left school at
the age of fifteen to begin artistic training with two local painters and From 1877 to 1880,
James Ensor studied at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts. He first exhibited his work in
1881.
James Ensor's early works depict realistic scenes in a somber style but his palette
subsequently brightened and he started favouring increasingly bizarre subject matter. Such
paintings as The Scandalized Masks (1883) and Skeletons Fighting over a Hanged
Man (1891) feature figures in grotesque masks inspired by the ones sold in his mother's
gift shop for Ostend's annual Carnival.
During the late 1800s much of James Ensor's work was rejected as scandalous. By 1920 he was the
subject of major exhibitions; in 1929 the Belgian composer Flor Alpaerts completed the
"James Ensor Suite", and Ensor was named a Baron by King Albert.
James Ensor is considered to be an innovator in 19th century art, and to have influenced Klee,
Emil Nolde, and other expressionist and surrealist painters of the 20th century. James Ensor's
works are prominently featured in the Modern Art Museum of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of
Belgium in Brussels, and exhibited in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp. A collection of
his letters is held in the Contemporary Art Archives of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts in
Brussels.
Contemporary Belgian Artists
Art Galleries in Belgium
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