The Social Context of James Ensor’s Art Practice

“Vive La Sociale!”

“Vive la Sociale”: This rousing, revolutionary statement, written on a bright red banner across the top of James Ensor’s monumental painting Christ’s Entry into Brussels in 1889, stood as a visual manifesto and call to action by the Belgian artist (1860-1949) who saw his art as central to the cultural discourse of modern Belgium.

Serving, too, as inspiration for this original survey of Ensor’s art, which highlights the social concerns and cultural contexts of the artist as he navigated a rapidly modernising Belgium, this statement situates Ensor in the unique social contexts of his time. Ensor’s interaction with the Belgian art world, and, in particular, the avant-garde art group Les XX and engagement with progressive art, science, politics and current events are discussed in-depth. Combined with analysis of the artist’s self-portraits and depictions of women, this new study presents Ensor as an artist of agency and purpose whose art practice engaged the issues and concerns of middle class Belgian life, society and politics, and was informed by the changing values of class, race and gender of his time.

Now available in paperback, this timely, nuanced reading of the art and career of this often misunderstood “artist’s artist” invites a re-evaluation not only of Ensor’s social context and expressive critique but also his unique contribution to modernist art practice. Lavishly illustrated with colour images of Ensor's bold figurative paintings, this book will be an important resource for artists, scholars and those interested in European modernism. Given Ensor's legacy of resistance, self-fashioning and performance through boundary-breaking art practice, his work remains all the more relevant today.

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