Anatomy of an Artwork: The Four Temperaments of James Ensor

The Four Temperaments.
Estimate: €60,000–80,000.

Ensor excelled in the art of drawing, using it to explore themes dear to him: the self-portrait, masks, the critique of bourgeois society, Japonism, skeletons, Christ and death.

The Four Temperaments explores the subject of the self-portrait to associate images with characteristics. We see the artist, associated with the ‘Epic’, but who has his hands tied. The other characters personify other ideas, and they collectively allude to the four temperaments.

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22 March 2018 | 6:00pm CET | Paris

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Details from The Four Temperaments.

This very rare drawing was made at a unique moment in the life of James Ensor, when he was a frequent visitor to the Hannon-Rousseau family, who welcomed him when he was a young student at the Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels. This period was also punctuated by cheerful group outings which also seem to be evoked in The Four Temperaments.

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22 March 2018 | 6:00pm CET | Paris

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1. The Poetic.

Ensor lived surrounded by women who inspired him, whether they were relatives of admirers, both muses and temptresses. Here the woman is ‘poetic’, probably embodying Mariette, his great friend, the wife of Ernest Rousseau and sister of Théo Hannon, a close friend of Ensor’s and the first owner of the drawing.

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22 March 2018 | 6:00pm CET | Paris

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2. The Epic.

This is a self-portrait, an exercise repeated several times by Ensor, which provides the spectacle of his tied hands and seems both sensitive to the ‘Poetic’ woman but also controlled by the ‘Sardonic’ figure shown behind him.

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22 March 2018 | 6:00pm CET | Paris

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3. The Sardonic.

This character probably represents the Belgian painter Guillaume Vogels, the co-founder of the group, the XX, who influenced Ensor’s painterly technique, perhaps mocking the enterprise.

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22 March 2018 | 6:00pm CET | Paris

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4. The Schniq(ue).

‘Schnik’ in Brussels means alcohol. People got drunk and slummed it in a ‘bar à schnik’. This already translates Ensor’s interest in folklore and popular scenes as well as the influence of his years in Brussels.

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22 March 2018 | 6:00pm CET | Paris

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