James Ensor

James Ensor, watercolor.
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James Ensor, who wrote, "I was born at Ostend, On April 13, 1860, on a Friday, the day of Venus. At my birth, Venus came toward me, smiling, and we looked into each other's eyes. She smelled pleasantly of salt water."
























Ensor was completely isolated in the hallucinatory world of his creation, an isolation that is revealed in his portrayal of the human figure behind a mask, which revealed all of his baser and more destructive aspects. His art is filled with images in which men exist only as phantoms or ghosts, eroded by death or contained in a peculiar experience of space-imaginary, shriveling into shallow areas, rushing again at a great distance as something new and monstrous.






















James Ensor, oil on canvas, "Still Life with masks."

James Ensor is considered to be an innovator in 19th century art. Although he stood apart from other artists of his time, he significantly influenced such 20th century artists as Paul Klee, Emil Nolde, George Grosz, Alfred Kubin, Wols, Felix Nussbaum, and other expressionist and surrealist painters of the 20th century.










photographs: masterwatercolors