James ensor

A Capricious Artistic Quest for Bliss: Postmodernist avant la lettre Herwig Todts

The extraordinary diversity of Ensor’s œuvre is often overlooked.

All the same, Eugène Demolder noted as early as 1892 that Ensor was not a specialist and tried his hand at all sorts of things: dreamy seascapes, still-lifes, ‘a series of elegant ladies’ (‘une série de femmes coquettes’) and ‘studies of a somewhat wild naturalism’ (‘des études d’un naturalisme un peu sauvage’); not to mention the humorous subjects, the masks, crowd scenes, pure caricatures and jocular diableries.1 The lawyer and author Demolder was the son-in-law of Félicien Rops and a good friend of Ensor’s, whose first solo exhibition he organised in 1894. Demolder published a number of articles on Ensor’s art, including a 24-page brochure in 1892 that was the first in-depth study devoted to his work.

Almost 40 years later, another literary friend – August Vermeylen, the Dutch-speaking art historian and socialist member of the Belgian Senate – was still surprised by the constant and extravagant diversity of Ensor’s art. Invited to deliver a lecture on his old friend’s work during the Ensor retrospective at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, Vermeylen told his audience: This ought to be a very happy day for me, as I am to speak about the thing I consider most important in life, that is to say art, and about the artist whom I most like and admire among all those practising today. And yet rarely have I felt so unhappy. I have been in a despairing, hopeless state for the past fortnight. I thought I knew Ensor well enough: but when his exhibition opened and his work could be seen in its entirety, it swiftly became clear that I would do better to hold my tongue. He has grown further in every direction than my words can do justice. I noticed during the opening, by the way, that anyone with even the slightest feeling for art was left with their head spinning as rapidly as mine. Bewildered and bamboozled, they could articulate their admiration only with a quiet stutter or a hearty curse – a curse that in those circumstances had the quality of a prayer.2 14

It is true, of course, that we always take a somewhat one-sided view of an artist’s activity. We tend to reduce it to its key elements, with the result that the diverse nature of their production is invariably obscured. Public exhibitions gradually became the principal destination for artistic achievements from around the second half of the eighteenth century. Artists increasingly responded by embarking on an endless quest to differentiate themselves, with the consequence that the diversity of artistic production has increased sharply over the past 200 years. In Ensor’s case, however, we can only observe that the diversity of his activity really was exceptional. To start with, there is the iconographical, stylistic and technical variety already noted by Demolder. But Ensor also published journalistic pieces, art-critical satire and speeches; he performed music, improvised, composed light-hearted piano pieces, and came up in 1911 with the ballet La Gamme d’Amour (fig. 43, cat. 23), complete with scenario, costumes, sets and music. It is understandable that all this made the despairing Vermeylen’s head spin. We might go so far as to call it postmodern capriciousness avant la lettre.3 Biography as prime mover?

How did this quasi-postmodern capriciousness come about?

Ensor’s biography is regularly invoked as the only significant motivation for his surprising artistic journey. In 2009 Xavier Tricot published a well-documented survey of the facts and rumours concerning the artist’s life and career.4 Ensor was the son of an English father and a Belgian mother. Only in 1929 did the prospect of becoming a baron prompt him to request naturalisation, having previously shared the British nationality of his father, James Frederic Ensor. The latter was reputedly a well-educated man from a prominent and wealthy family that spent a lot of time in Brussels and on the Belgian coast. He married the less socially elevated

A Capricious Artistic Quest for Bliss: Postmodernist avant la lettre Herwig Todts

The extraordinary diversity of Ensor’s œuvre is often overlooked.

All the same, Eugène Demolder noted as early as 1892 that Ensor was not a specialist and tried his hand at all sorts of things: dreamy seascapes, still-lifes, ‘a series of elegant ladies’ (‘une série de femmes coquettes’) and ‘studies of a somewhat wild naturalism’ (‘des études d’un naturalisme un peu sauvage’); not to mention the humorous subjects, the masks, crowd scenes, pure caricatures and jocular diableries.1 The lawyer and author Demolder was the son-in-law of Félicien Rops and a good friend of Ensor’s, whose first solo exhibition he organised in 1894. Demolder published a number of articles on Ensor’s art, including a 24-page brochure in 1892 that was the first in-depth study devoted to his work.

Almost 40 years later, another literary friend – August Vermeylen, the Dutch-speaking art historian and socialist member of the Belgian Senate – was still surprised by the constant and extravagant diversity of Ensor’s art. Invited to deliver a lecture on his old friend’s work during the Ensor retrospective at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, Vermeylen told his audience: This ought to be a very happy day for me, as I am to speak about the thing I consider most important in life, that is to say art, and about the artist whom I most like and admire among all those practising today. And yet rarely have I felt so unhappy. I have been in a despairing, hopeless state for the past fortnight. I thought I knew Ensor well enough: but when his exhibition opened and his work could be seen in its entirety, it swiftly became clear that I would do better to hold my tongue. He has grown further in every direction than my words can do justice. I noticed during the opening, by the way, that anyone with even the slightest feeling for art was left with their head spinning as rapidly as mine. Bewildered and bamboozled, they could articulate their admiration only with a quiet stutter or a hearty curse – a curse that in those circumstances had the quality of a prayer.2 14

It is true, of course, that we always take a somewhat one-sided view of an artist’s activity. We tend to reduce it to its key elements, with the result that the diverse nature of their production is invariably obscured. Public exhibitions gradually became the principal destination for artistic achievements from around the second half of the eighteenth century. Artists increasingly responded by embarking on an endless quest to differentiate themselves, with the consequence that the diversity of artistic production has increased sharply over the past 200 years. In Ensor’s case, however, we can only observe that the diversity of his activity really was exceptional. To start with, there is the iconographical, stylistic and technical variety already noted by Demolder. But Ensor also published journalistic pieces, art-critical satire and speeches; he performed music, improvised, composed light-hearted piano pieces, and came up in 1911 with the ballet La Gamme d’Amour (fig. 43, cat. 23), complete with scenario, costumes, sets and music. It is understandable that all this made the despairing Vermeylen’s head spin. We might go so far as to call it postmodern capriciousness avant la lettre.3 Biography as prime mover?

How did this quasi-postmodern capriciousness come about?

Ensor’s biography is regularly invoked as the only significant motivation for his surprising artistic journey. In 2009 Xavier Tricot published a well-documented survey of the facts and rumours concerning the artist’s life and career.4 Ensor was the son of an English father and a Belgian mother. Only in 1929 did the prospect of becoming a baron prompt him to request naturalisation, having previously shared the British nationality of his father, James Frederic Ensor. The latter was reputedly a well-educated man from a prominent and wealthy family that spent a lot of time in Brussels and on the Belgian coast. He married the less socially elevated

3

4

Portrait of the Artist at His Easel, 1879 Oil on canvas, 40 × 33 cm

The Bourgeois Salon, 1880 Oil on canvas, 65 × 57 cm

Private collection

Gallery Ronny Van de Velde, Antwerp

46

47

3

4

Portrait of the Artist at His Easel, 1879 Oil on canvas, 40 × 33 cm

The Bourgeois Salon, 1880 Oil on canvas, 65 × 57 cm

Private collection

Gallery Ronny Van de Velde, Antwerp

46

47

21

22

Chinoiseries, 1907 Oil on canvas, 61.5 × 75 cm

Flowers and Vegetables, 1896 Oil on canvas, 78.5 × 99 cm

Museum Dhont-Dhaenens, Deurle

Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp, inv. 1858

68

69

21

22

Chinoiseries, 1907 Oil on canvas, 61.5 × 75 cm

Flowers and Vegetables, 1896 Oil on canvas, 78.5 × 99 cm

Museum Dhont-Dhaenens, Deurle

Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp, inv. 1858

68

69

50

51

From Laughter to Tears, 1908 Oil on canvas, 50.5 × 100 cm

Skeletons in Fancy Dress, 1898 Oil on canvas, 19.5 × 35 cm

The Simon Collection of Belgian Art, courtesy Patrick Derom Gallery

The Phoebus Foundation

110

111

50

51

From Laughter to Tears, 1908 Oil on canvas, 50.5 × 100 cm

Skeletons in Fancy Dress, 1898 Oil on canvas, 19.5 × 35 cm

The Simon Collection of Belgian Art, courtesy Patrick Derom Gallery

The Phoebus Foundation

110

111

56 The Entry of Christ into Brussels, 1895 Copper plate etching, 24.7 Ă— 35.6 cm Musea Brugge, Groeningemuseum, Bruges 118

56 The Entry of Christ into Brussels, 1895 Copper plate etching, 24.7 Ă— 35.6 cm Musea Brugge, Groeningemuseum, Bruges 118

142

143

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143

CH13

152

CH13

152

Mrs Dominic Dowley Nigel and Christine Evans Mrs Catherine Farquharson Catherine Ferguson Adam Gahlin Gaye and Kent Gardner Mr Mark Garthwaite Mrs Michael Green Mr and Mrs G Halamish Mr Lindsay Hamilton Mrs Lesley Haynes Mr Philip Hodgkinson Professor Ken Howard RA and Mrs Howard Mark and Fiona Hutchinson Mr and Mrs S Kahan Paul and Susie Kempe Mrs Alkistis Koukouliou Nicolette Kwok Mrs Anna Lee Mr and Mrs Mark Loveday April Lu Boon Heng Philip and Val Marsden Itxaso Mediavilla-Murray Jim Moyes The Lord and Lady Myners Mr William Ramsay Ms Mouna Rebeiz Peter Rice Esq Anthony and Sally Salz Brian D Smith Lisa Stocker Miss Sarah Straight Mr Ray Treen Marek and Penny Wojciechowski Mrs Diana Wilkinson and others who wish to remain anonymous RA Young Patrons Chair May Calil Gold Mr Alexander Green Silver Ms Léonie Achammer Kalita al Swaidi Ms Katharine Arnold Miss Henrietta Ash Sophie Ashby Ms Vanessa Aubry Mr Gergely Battha-Pajor Ms Iris Behler Lucinda Bellm Mr Alexander Bradford May Calil Mr Matthew Charlton Mr Alessandro Conti HRH Princess Eugenie of York Mr Alexander Flint Ms Emily Fraser Mr Rollo Gabb Flora Goodwin Mr Sidney Hiscox Miss Amelia Hunton Mrs Fernanda Jess Ms Huma Kabakci Miss Min Kemp Miss Tiggi Kempe Mr Callum Kempe Alexandra Ames Kornman Wei-Lyn Loh Tessa Lord Christina Makris Mr Jean-David Malat Ignacio Marinho Isabella Marinho Florence Mather Ms Kimiya Minoukadeh Mr Oliver Morris-Jones Ziba Sarikhani Ms Jane Singer Mr Amar Singh Emily Skeppner Mr Henry Thorogood Mr Milan Tomic Mr Vassili Tsarenkov Miss Navann Ty Ms Zeynep Uzuner Alexandra Warder Mark Whitcroft Ms India Williamson

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BNY Mellon Cazenove Capital Management Chestertons Christie’s Deutsche Bank AG FTI Consulting HS1 Insight Investment JLL JM Finn & Co. JTI KPMG Linklaters Marsh Pinsent Masons LLP Sanlam Private Wealth Smith & Williamson Sotheby’s XL Catlin Corporate Members Bloomberg LP BMO The Boston Consulting Group UK LLP Capital Group Dechert GAM Generation Investment Managment LLP GlaxoSmithKline Plc Hansteen Holdings Hugo Boss John Lewis Partnership Lindsell Train Marie Curie Ten Acre Mayfair (Native Land, Hotel Properties Limited and Amcorp) Quilter Cheviot Rathbone Investment Management Ridgeway Partners The Royal Society of Chemistry Slaughter & May Trowers & Hamlins UBS Vitol SA Weil, Gotshal & Manges Associate Members Bank of America Merrill Lynch BNP Paribas Bonhams 1793 Ltd British American Tobacco Clifford Chance LLP The Cultivist EY Heidrick & Struggles Imperial College Healthcare Charity Jones Day Lazard Lubbock Fine Chartered Accountants Momart Morgan Stanley Pentland Group plc Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation Europe Ltd

Supporters of Past Exhibitions The President and Council of the Royal Academy would like to thank the following supporters for their generous contributions towards major exhibitions in the last ten years: 2016 Abstract Exhibitionism BNP Paribas Terra Foundation for American Art Phillips Brooke Brown Barzun Jake and Hélène Marie Shafran David Hockney: 82 Portraits and 1 Still-life Cazenove Capital Management

248th Summer Exhibition Insight Investment In the Age of Giorgione 2009–2016 Season supported

by JTI Maserati Royal Academy International Patrons Painting the Modern Garden: Monet to Matisse BNY Mellon, Partner of the Royal Academy of Arts 2015 Jean-Etienne Liotard 2009–2016 Season supported

by JTI The Pictet Group Cockayne Grants for the Arts, a donor advised fund of London Community Foundation Mr and Mrs Bart T. Tiernan The Jean-Etienne Liotard Supporters’ Group Joseph Cornell: Wanderlust 2009–2016 Season supported

by JTI The Terra Foundation for American Art The Cornell Leadership Circle Premiums, RA Schools Annual Dinner and Auction and RA Schools Show 2015 Newton Investment Management 247th Summer Exhibition Insight Investment Richard Diebenkorn 2009–2016 Season supported

by JTI The Terra Foundation for American Art Rubens and His Legacy BNY Mellon, Partner of the Royal Academy of Arts 2015 Architecture Programme Lead supporter Turkishceramics 2014 Allen Jones RA Lead Series Supporter JTI Giovanni Battista Moroni 2009–2016 Season supported

by JTI UBI Banca Anselm Kiefer BNP Paribas White Cube Radical Geometry: Modern Art of South America from the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection 2009–2016 Season supported by JTI Christie’s Dennis Hopper: The Lost Album Lead Series Supporter JTI Nikon UK Premiums, RA Schools Annual Dinner and Auction and RA Schools Show 2014 Newton Investment Management 246th Summer Exhibition Insight Investment Dream, Draw, Work: Architectural Drawings by Norman Shaw RA Lowell Libson Ltd Collections and Library Supporters Circle

Renaissance Impressions: Chiaroscuro Woodcuts from the Collections of Georg Baselitz and the Albertina, Vienna JTI Edwards Wildman Sensing Spaces: Architecture Reimagined Scott and Laura Malkin AKT II Arauco 2013 Bill Woodrow RA Lead Series Supporter JTI The Henry Moore Foundation Daumier 2009–2016 Season supported

by JTI Australia National Gallery of Australia Qantas Airways The Woolmark Company Richard Rogers RA: Inside Out Ferrovial Agroman Heathrow Airport Laing O’Rourke Mexico: A Revolution in Art, 1910–1940 2009–2016 Season supported

by JTI Art Mentor Foundation Lucerne Conaculta Mexican Agency for International Development Cooperation Sectur Visit Mexico 245th Summer Exhibition Insight Investment George Bellows 2009–2016 Season supported

by JTI Edwards Wildman Premiums, RA Schools Annual Dinner and Auction and RA Schools Show 2013 Newton Investment Management Manet: Portraying Life BNY Mellon, Partner of the Royal Academy of Arts 2012 Mariko Mori JTI RA Now JTI Bronze Christian Levett and Mougins Museum of Classical Art Daniel Katz Gallery Baron Lorne ThyssenBornemisza John and Fausta Eskenazi The Ruddock Foundation for the Arts Tomasso Brothers Fine Art Jon and Barbara Landau Janine and J. Tomilson Hill Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands Eskenazi Limited Lisson Gallery Alexis Gregory Alan and Mary Hobart Richard de Unger and Adeela Qureshi Rossi & Rossi Ltd Embassy of Israel 244th Summer Exhibition Insight Investment

From Paris: A Taste for Impressionism – Paintings from the Clark 2009–2016 Season supported

by JTI Edwards Wildman The Annenberg Foundation Premiums, RA Schools Annual Dinner and Auction and RA Schools Show 2012 Newton Investment Management Johan Zoffany RA: Society Observed 2009–2016 Season supported

by JTI Cox & Kings Building the Revolution: Soviet Art and Architecture 1915–1935 2009–2016 Season supported

by JTI The Ove Arup Foundation The Norman Foster Foundation Richard and Ruth Rogers David Hockney RA: A Bigger Picture BNP Paribas Welcome to Yorkshire: Tourism Partner Visit Hull & East Yorkshire: Supporting Tourism Partner NEC 2011 Degas and the Ballet: Picturing Movement BNY Mellon, Partner of the Royal Academy of Arts Region Holdings Blavatnik Family Foundation Eyewitness: Hungarian Photography in the Twentieth Century. Brassaï, Capa, Kertész, Moholy-Nagy, Munkácsi 2009–2016 Season supported

by JTI Hungarofest OTP Bank 243rd Summer Exhibition Insight Investment Premiums, RA Schools Annual Dinner and Auction and RA Schools Show 2011 Newton Investment Management Watteau: The Drawings 2009–2016 Season supported

by JTI Region Holdings Modern British Sculpture American Express Foundation The Henry Moore Foundation Hauser & Wirth Art Mentor Foundation Lucerne Sotheby’s Blain Southern Welcome to Yorkshire: Tourism Partner 2010 GSK Contemporary – Aware: Art Fashion Identity GlaxoSmithKline Pioneering Painters: The Glasgow Boys 1880–1900 2009–2016 Season supported

by JTI Glasgow Museums Treasures from Budapest: European Masterpieces from Leonardo to Schiele OTP Bank Villa Budapest Daniel Katz Gallery, London Cox & Kings: Travel Partner

Sargent and the Sea 2009–2016 Season supported

by JTI 242nd Summer Exhibition Insight Investment Paul Sandby RA: Picturing Britain, A Bicentenary Exhibition 2009–2016 Season supported

by JTI The Real Van Gogh: The Artist and His Letters BNY Mellon, Partner of the Royal Academy of Arts Hiscox Plc Heath Lambert Cox & Kings: Travel Partner RA Outreach Programme Deutsche Bank AG 2009 GSK Contemporary GlaxoSmithKline Wild Thing: Epstein, Gaudier-Brzeska, Gill 2009–2016 Season supported

by JTI BNP Paribas The Henry Moore Foundation Anish Kapoor JTI Richard Chang Richard and Victoria Sharp Louis Vuitton The Henry Moore Foundation J W Waterhouse: The Modern Pre-Raphaelite 2009–2016 Season supported

by JTI Champagne Perrier-Jouët GasTerra Gasunie 241st Summer Exhibition Insight Investment Kuniyoshi. From the Arthur R. Miller Collection 2009–2016 Season supported

by JTI Canon Cox & Kings: Travel Partner Premiums and RA Schools Show Mizuho International plc RA Outreach Programme Deutsche Bank AG 2008 GSK Contemporary GlaxoSmithKline Byzantium 330–1453 J F Costopoulos Foundation A G Leventis Foundation Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cox & Kings: Travel Partner Miró, Calder, Giacometti, Braque: Aimé Maeght and His Artists BNP Paribas Vilhelm Hammershøi: The Poetry of Silence OAK Foundation Denmark Novo Nordisk 240th Summer Exhibition Insight Investment Premiums and RA Schools Show Mizuho International plc RA Outreach Programme Deutsche Bank AG