The opening of the painter’s Ostend house to the public, scheduled for 2020, will undoubtedly serve to enhance interest in his highly unusual art. Some of the factual information provided in this biography, including titles of the works, relates to the authoritative inventory of Ensor’s work in the catalogue raisonné published by Mercatorfonds in 2009. In a letter from 1888 to Ernest Rousseau Jr., he described a vision or fantastical dream that conveys the exuberant creativity of his mind. We also learn that he enjoyed clowning around with the sons of his friends Ernest and Mariette Rousseau, in Brussels, and drew on photographs of their games and disguises for his art.Įnsor had a certain talent as a writer. Later, in Germany in 1892, Ensor described buying around a hundred masks, which he hung in his studio to striking effect. Among other things, we learn that early in 1885, Ensor’s father was attacked and seriously injured by two young men in an Ostend café, an incident that left indelible traces in the painter’s mind. New information has recently been discovered in the unpublished correspondence. Our knowledge of Ensor’s life is constantly being updated by the work of Xavier Tricot, author of this biography, and the Ensor Advisory Committee. Magnificently illustrated with a broad selection of his masterpieces, it offers a guided tour through Ensor’s work, revealing his development as an artist. In some of his works, the artist identified with the Messiah.This complete, detailed biography of the Belgian artist James Ensor provides an extensively documented chronology, drawing on both the painter’s letters and articles in the contemporary press.

From 1885 onward, the figure of Christ occupied a central position in Ensor's oeuvre. The author of the work, Xavier Tricot, also pays close attention to the figure of Christ in James Ensor's work. The series combines various motifs which Ensor also executed in oil paint. These drawings can be considered as a link between the Ostend master's early and later oeuvre. In 1929 the drawings were made into lithographs and published in the form of an album by Galerie Georges Giroux in Brussels. Among the works in the series is a drawing in which Ensor portrays himself as Christ, confronted with a dozen Belgian art critics who have gathered before him. Some compositions are quite conventional, others typically 'Ensorian', and some even humorous. In it, Ensor managed to combine the sublime and the grotesque in an unsurpassed manner. The series depicts different episodes from the lives of Jesus and the Virgin Mary. Each drawing on paper measures about 15 by 21 cm. In 1912-1913, James Ensor produced a series of 32 drawings in coloured pencil titled Scènes de la vie du Christ.

James Ensor by Xavier Tricot