James Ensor and the Graphic Experiment
With contributions by Izanna Mulder, Willemijn Stammis, Ad Stijnman and Herwig Todts.
Published by Hannibal Books to accompany the exhibition “Ensor’s States of Imagination,” which continues until January 18 at the Museum Plantin-Moretus, Antwerp.
This year marks 75 years since the death of the painter and printmaker James Ensor, which has been the cue for a flurry of exhibitions in his native Belgium.
A standout is “Ensor’s States of Imagination” at Antwerp’s Platin-Moretus printing museum, whose proud boast is that it is the only museum included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.
The venue is apt because Ensor turned to printing to express his dismay at and even transcend the transience of all things human.
“I am haunted by notions of survival … I fear the fragility of painting,” he wrote. “I want to survive, and I think of solid copper plates, stable inks, easy reproductions, and I take etching as a means of expression.”
He is tapping into a tradition dating in Antwerp from the 16th-century when the city was a cultural hub and, for artists, printing had a very practical value: it was not just a matter of aesthetics or the solidity of metal, it meant reaching a wider audience, one of the surest ways to ensure an artist’s survival.
As the book to accompany the exhibition, “James Ensor and the Graphic Experiment” outlines some of Ensor’s technical adventurousness and explores how blurred the boundaries can be between painting and etching.
As Ensor’s imagination evolved, lavish illustrations show etching was the basis for different versions of the “Ensorian” figures, either skull-like or wearing the masks of society that he satirised.
Using two different methods of etching, Ensor depicts himself with flesh and with a skull for a face.
He also makes an almost ghostly etching of his dead father, also named James Ensor, a year after making a death bed drawing of him.
One of Ensor’s most famous works is “Christ’s Entry into Brussels” (1888-9), which began as a large, boldly coloured painting that brings together many of Ensor’s recurrent themes: the hypocritical, social mask, the skull beneath it and a mockery of high office when held by the unworthy.
Nearly a decade later, he made an etching of the same scene, ensuring its wider distribution.
For Ensor, etching was also about light, which the childless artist described as his daughter.
The etching “The Bridge in the Wood at Ostend”, for instance, draws the eye to the reflections on the river, and the darkness beneath the bridge.
It is characterised by tiny circles that suggest the play of light. Technically, they are a flaw caused by acid bubbles in the etching process, but they can also be interpreted as a happy accident of “the graphic experiment”.
Barbara Lewis © 2024.
James Ensor and the Graphic Experiment
With contributions by Izanna Mulder, Willemijn Stammis, Ad Stijnman and Herwig Todts.
Published by Hannibal Books to accompany the exhibition “Ensor’s States of Imagination,” which continues until January 18 at the Museum Plantin-Moretus, Antwerp.
This year marks 75 years since the death of the painter and printmaker James Ensor, which has been the cue for a flurry of exhibitions in his native Belgium.
A standout is “Ensor’s States of Imagination” at Antwerp’s Platin-Moretus printing museum, whose proud boast is that it is the only museum included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.
The venue is apt because Ensor turned to printing to express his dismay at and even transcend the transience of all things human.
“I am haunted by notions of survival … I fear the fragility of painting,” he wrote. “I want to survive, and I think of solid copper plates, stable inks, easy reproductions, and I take etching as a means of expression.”
He is tapping into a tradition dating in Antwerp from the 16th-century when the city was a cultural hub and, for artists, printing had a very practical value: it was not just a matter of aesthetics or the solidity of metal, it meant reaching a wider audience, one of the surest ways to ensure an artist’s survival.
As the book to accompany the exhibition, “James Ensor and the Graphic Experiment” outlines some of Ensor’s technical adventurousness and explores how blurred the boundaries can be between painting and etching.
As Ensor’s imagination evolved, lavish illustrations show etching was the basis for different versions of the “Ensorian” figures, either skull-like or wearing the masks of society that he satirised.
Using two different methods of etching, Ensor depicts himself with flesh and with a skull for a face.
He also makes an almost ghostly etching of his dead father, also named James Ensor, a year after making a death bed drawing of him.
One of Ensor’s most famous works is “Christ’s Entry into Brussels” (1888-9), which began as a large, boldly coloured painting that brings together many of Ensor’s recurrent themes: the hypocritical, social mask, the skull beneath it and a mockery of high office when held by the unworthy.
Nearly a decade later, he made an etching of the same scene, ensuring its wider distribution.
For Ensor, etching was also about light, which the childless artist described as his daughter.
The etching “The Bridge in the Wood at Ostend”, for instance, draws the eye to the reflections on the river, and the darkness beneath the bridge.
It is characterised by tiny circles that suggest the play of light. Technically, they are a flaw caused by acid bubbles in the etching process, but they can also be interpreted as a happy accident of “the graphic experiment”.
Barbara Lewis © 2024.
By Barbara Lewis • added recently on London Grip, art, books, print • Tags: art, Barbara Lewis, books, print