James
Ensor
(1860-1949). Between
"bright colors and impasto, the Belgian artist of the people rather
masks, skulls and skeletons sardonic. A retrospective of the Orsay
museum succeeds, so exhilarating to be around a capricious and
whimsical artist who rose from the crowd with self-portrait with the
same devastating irony. Then another great artist of the North, his
contemporary French Henri
Matisse (1869-1954), will direct all his art to the south and all kinds
of Arcadia, Ensor confine all his life in Ostend, his hometown. Located
on the beach then in fashion, it will not be content to seek the
earliest roots of Flemish painting from Bosch to Breughel painting in
which the handling of the brush does not allude to the fable or
proverb. Which today characterizes the best of his work, they are
borrowing massive directory carnival. His drawings, prints, canvases
are full of allusions to these puppets disjointed, these effigies giant
paper mache in crude colors, which can be seen on Mardi Gras in cities
overseas Quiévrain, leading processions shouting and
joyfully protesters. Recalling the family and other Pulcinella
Punchinello, the sarabands
characters painted by Ensor are often removed with a light hand. The
tone, however, may be more worrisome, in images that are never very far
from the surrealism. Greatly appreciated by all of the decadent Belle
Epoque, in particular by Lorrain or Huysmans, one of his most famous
shows two skeletons penguins currently compete for a
herring. Sensitive, narcissistic, author of a hundred
self-portraits easy
mocking, often irresistible, Ensor could play the rebels. Fascinated by
biblical works of Rembrandt, this purveyor of absolute not hesitate to
identify with Christ in the paintings very inspired. With a rainbow sky
to the left, a gorgeous blue sky, Christ walking on water is
undoubtedly one of the finest paintings of the time. He repeated with
the Old Testament: Adam and Eve expelled from paradise hints resources
at his foolish when it comes to summon the imagination or beyond, in
the vapor Turner. Atmospheres that electrifies more to bring Christ to
Brussels after a band and a banner under contestation "Long live
Socialism" in a huge table, kept at the Getty in Los Angeles,
unfortunately absent from the exhibition. The "anarchist" lonely and
ironic no hesitation in number of sheets and linens, to challenge the
established order. When the top of the glory of the master, the king of
the Belgians will Baron, when it comes to the Royal Academy, prints
representing functional constituencies defecating on the population
will pose some problems.Before populating his paintings of skulls and
skeletons, Ensor, like
all beginners, sought his subjects in his familiar world. The assertion
of Impressionism and movements that depend on the left of marble. He
did not need Monet to adjust the light in his paintings. He looked over
the roofs and he opened his eyes on the street, Ensor painted lighter
than they did in general at the time. Turning a little later, to indoor
scenes, the same color sense led him to describe the table of Oyster
Eater with a refinement reminiscent of Holland's Golden Age. His still
lifes are as tasty as the portraits, even if the line through its
uneasy smile ghost and its shells, a strange pink, can be as gaping
gender. Back in Ostend after a few seasons to the Academie Royale de
Peinture in Brussels where he attended a few courses without learning
anything, he was threatened s'encalminer around the oil lamp family.
Fortunately, poetic charge of the house of Ostend has radically altered
the trajectory of the painter. If the upper floors gave the privilege
to paint in their own privacy, ground floor offered him something much
rarer. Held by his parents and grandmother, gift shop, which was
installed is displayed in the manner of a true cabinet of curiosities,
filled with all sorts of knickknacks, coral, shells glittering masks of
Japan, fetishes brought from Africa or Oceania. A great cave in which
Ensor regularly revitalized capital's carnival without ever touching
the dividend. Indeed, in 1896, he was condemned to repeat it. Where
other painters have ever conquered new territories, such as those of
abstraction, Ensor chose to explore, with an indefinable charm, the
same vein.
