James Ensor (1860-1949)

Collection C. Snauwaert, Brussels
Collection Desvenain-Snauwaert, Brussels
Collection W. Willems, Brussels

Antwerp, Kunst van Heden, 1921, no. 18
Antwerp, Kunst van Heden, 1922, no. 477

G. Le Roy, James Ensor, Brussels, Paris 1922, p. 154, illustrated
J.E. Payro, James Ensor, Paris 1943, no. 44, illustrated
P. Haesaert, James Ensor, Brussels 1957, no. 416
Xavier Tricot, James Ensor, Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings,  Antwerp 1992, no. 473, illustrated

 Except for three years spent at the Brussels Academy, from 1877 to 1880, he lived in Ostend all his life. His early works were of traditional subjects -landscapes, still lifes, portraits, interiors - painted in deep, rich and strong colours. In the mid 1880s, influenced by the bright colours of the impressionists and the grotesque imagery of earlier Flemish masters such as Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter Brueghel the Elder, Ensor turned toward avant-garde themes and styles.

Next to this style he developed a way of painting on unprepared canvases with sparse use of paint. It gave the pictures a matt effect, because the canvas absorbed the oil in the paint. This technique made these works look like contemporary frescos.  An effect that was already used by the great French painters Pluvis de Chavannes and Gaugain.

 

The subject of Baigneuses or bathers was often used by Ensor. First of all it reminds is of his hometown Ostend and the popularity of bathing in sea during the summer months. But the painting also pays a tribute to classical bathing scenes from the past, from Rembrandt’s Bathsheba to Renoir his bathing girls.

 

On a different level Ensor also used old symbols like the woman with three children on her arms, which is a well known way of depicting the virtue of Charity. He also played his trump card of humour as he had often done in the past, by painting a woman with her legs up into the air underneath the virtue.
 

The subtitle of the present lot Baigneuses, lignes courbes et ondulée  (lines curved and waved) may also be interpreted in various ways. On one hand it could refer to the flamboyant style of the Art Nouveau, but it may also mean that this painting was meant as a study in practicing different types of rolling lines. Or was it Ensor’s way to express his love for Wagner and the temptations of Tannhäuser by Venus.

Ensor can make us wonder about the meaning of his paintings, often with a smile.