Belgium celebrates surrealist painter James Ensor

On a December afternoon, when DW visited Ostend, the hometown of James Ensor, it did not exactly present itself as a "lovely colorful flower", as the Belgian painter once called it. The town is situated on the Flemish North Sea coast. Dark clouds hovered over the beach that stretches between the Netherlands in the east and France in the west.

Before its destruction during World War II, Ostend was known as the "Queen of Seaside Resorts." Today, the coastal strip is built up with modernist vacation apartment buildings. James Ensor lived in this charming, sleepy town from his birth on April 13, 1860 until his death on November 19, 1949 barring a few times he was away — like spending three years studying art in Brussels, around 100 kilometers away.

Inspired by mother's souvenir shop

Ensor's home in Vlaanderenstraat (Flanders Street) is in the second row from the beach. On the first floor of this souvenir shop, his mother sold stuffed crocodiles, weapons from the colonial era and carnival masks. This cabinet of curiosities has been authentically restored and is one of the main attractions of James Ensor's house. It was reopened as a museum in 2020.

A tour leads past reproductions of his most important works and into the Blue Salon, which also served as Ensor's studio. A perfect introduction to the life of the loner, who lived in Ostend under one roof with his mother, aunt and sister. The family lived off the income of the souvenir shops, of which there were six in Ostend. Three of them were owned by the Ensors until his father's death. The items on sale here became an important source of inspiration for James Ensor, as did the local carnival celebrations.

A mix of carnival and reality

Ensor's imagery of skeletons, marionettes, skulls and carnival masks, which he captured in sharp detail, is as morbid as it is legendary. And although Ensor was an atheist, he often referred to the Passion of Christ in his paintings.

His most famous painting, "Christ's Entry Into Brussels in 1889," hangs as a reproduction in the Ensor House. The original is in Los Angeles and no longer travels. In his drawing "Calvary," he shows that he did not think much of religion: The artist himself hangs on the cross instead of Christ and the inscription above reads ENSOR instead of INRI. 

The masks that made Ensor popular 

Once considered an eccentric, today he is counted among the icons of modern art. If he had not withdrawn into his shell in Ostend, his fame would be different today, says Xavier Tricot, curator of the Ensor House. Artistically, he was far ahead of his contemporaries. "Ensor was an oddball who always walked around with two small dogs on a leash and a yellow raincoat. People looked at the remarkably tall painter askance," Tricot told DW at the Ensor House.

And the painter looked back "askance," as in the painting "The Bathers of Ostend," a caricature of the leisure-seeking summer vacationers at the beach. Inspired by cartoons and doodles, Ensor created a Bruegel-esque panorama in 1890 depicting (un)inhibited beach pleasures. Upon close examination of the frolicking beachgoers, it becomes evident that Ensor harbors no admiration for them. He creates a portrayal of infinite banality: Copulating dogs, a man groping a woman's chest, an overweight lady flaunting her naked posterior, two young men kissing and a floating obese character.

Ostend showcases Ensor's still-life paintings

Objects from his parents' souvenir shop appear as motifs in his paintings from the start. This is evident even in his still life paintings, as the exhibition "Rose, Rose, Rose à mes yeux. James Ensor and still life in Belgium from 1830 to 1930" currently on display in Ostend demonstrates. The MuZee Museum, just a few streets away from Ensor's residence, presents 50 of his still lifes for the first time in the context of Belgian contemporaries.

"Ensor is a benchmark for what others do — you can compare the quality and at the same time show that Ensor had an environment, that he was not a lone rider in the desert," curator Bart Verschaffel told DW. Ensor experimented with new styles and techniques until old age. Therefore, his still lifes cannot be pigeonholed.

Change in color palette around the turn of the century

James Ensor developed an early preference for travesty and confusion, draping motifs in his carefully composed paintings that became his trademarks: Shells, skulls, skeletons, chinoiserie and carnival masks. Ensor mixed them with typical vanitas motifs such as playing cards, wilting flowers or skulls. The common themes of vanitas style artwork revolve around death, mortality, the passage of time and the futility of worldly pursuits. French Impressionism and Neo-Impressionism also inspired Ensor to experiment with the atmospheric phenomena of daylight.

The exhibition traces Ensor's development from academic still lifes in dark tones before 1890 to the influence of Impressionism. Towards the end of the 19th century, Ensor changed his color palette. He used pure colors — red, yellow, blue — and applied them thickly. In a vegetable still life, the red cabbage next to a yellow lemon on a blue tablecloth shines brightly. Ensor was not concerned with a realistic representation but with the dynamics and individuality of what was depicted, which distinguishes all his still lifes.

Neither symbolist nor impressionist

Bart Verschaffel sees Ensor as a "precursor to Expressionism," especially because of his provocative color combinations and strong brushstrokes. The bourgeoisie of Ostend reacted with horror to his daring still lifes, and art critics also advised him to "return to tradition," according to Xavier Tricot. With a satirical spirit, he painted bouquets of flowers on canvas as well as skulls with cigarettes in their mouths. Another grand motif is the portrait of a flirting ray — almost lasciviously, it extends its lower part towards the viewer. Opened fish eyes appear repeatedly. "They are still looking, even though they are dead," says Verschaffel.

In any case, Ensor boldly attacked the upper class with his works and made no friends when he painted shells as a symbol of the female gender in his pictures. Ensor, who lived under the same roof with his sister until his death, had an ambivalent relationship with sexuality. Initially, no one wanted to buy his works that tilted towards the surreal. But the excitement subsided, and Ensor became fashionable. Among artists, he was long considered a guiding star: Wassily Kandinsky, Edouard Vuillard, Erich Heckel and Giuseppe Ungaretti are among many who traveled to Ostend to visit Ensor at his home.

The exhibition at MuZee traces the path of his artistic development, always in an exciting comparison with the motifs of Ensor's contemporaries, who rarely match the sophistication of the refined loner from Ostend.

This article was originally written in German.