James Ensor: The Temptation of Saint Anthony

by Susan M. Canning, Kimberly Nichols, Herwig Todts (Introduction)

This engaging volume describes the creation and restoration of the extraordinary large-scale drawing The Temptation of Saint Anthony —a work by late 19th-century Belgian artist James Ensor (1860–1949)—on the occasion of its first public showing in more than 60 years. The piece is composed of 51 separate sheets of paper collaged into a hallucinatory social critique and artist’s manifesto. Each sheet of the nearly six-foot-high work is reproduced at actual size, revealing Ensor’s remarkable technique and fertile imagination. Here, Saint Anthony is surrounded not with nature, as customary, but with the moral decay of society. Replete with tiny scenes depicting both sexual temptation and spiritual piety, Ensor splices potent imagery from travelogues, popular science, and technology magazines into a Symbolist masterpiece. Susan M. Canning, Patrick Florizöone, and Nancy Ireson analyze the drawing’s meaning; Herwig Todts details its origins and early history; and Kimberly J. Nichols recounts the work’s restoration.
 


Distributed for the Art Institute of Chicago

Exhibition The J. Paul Getty Museum (06/10/14–08/31/14) The Art Institute of Chicago
(11/23/14–01/25/15)

Genres: Art

144 pages, Hardcover

First published June 24, 2014

Reviews

[Chuck LoPresti · Rating 5 out of 5]

The research on Ensor is fairly exhaustive and new insights are rare. Despite recent efforts that rework some of the shoddy scholarship of earlier writers that seemed obsessed with his status as something less than a commonly accepted great artist, little of any significant importance has been offered. The recent exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago effectively changes that. Count now among other great works such as The Intrigue, The Cathedral, The Entry of Christ in Brussles..., The Tribulations of St. Anthony (MOMA painting) and Woman Eating Oysters - this massive composite drawing known as the Temptation of St. Anthony. It is a horrible delight to behold and compares in scale and impact to The Entry.

That scholars need to point out that he had a sense of humor, felt constantly victimized, loved music, was horrified of women and had a tremulous relationship with god in both private and public terms can only be seen as repetitive at this point but Susan Canning's essay does an appropriately fantastic job of revealing most of the symbolist/literary connections that inform this and most of Ensor's catalog.

My only possible reservation is that the important work of Stephen C McGough is again overlooked. His extremely thorough thesis on the multi-point perspective of his most famous work should never be omitted from Ensor studies - his writing, to my knowledge is unsurpassed in detail and understanding of exactly Ensor was "up to" in his most monumental, if not best, work.

And, where the exhibition does a fantastic and exhaustive job of presenting the entirety of modes of expression employed by Ensor, the catalog focuses primarily on the recently displayed composite drawing. Fine as such, this book doesn't claim to do more - but I would have like to have some fine color prints of major works such as The Intrigue, Children Dressing..., The Rower, Skeletons Fighting Over The Body...included. Also welcome would have been more of the recently discovered correspondences of Ensor who excelled in music and prose as well as visual art. But I guess this as well is a subject for another book.

Get ye to Chicago and see this exhibit - it's absolutely stunning and this catalog will provide an important framing of the peak/end experience you will carry with you for an amount of time that will be commensurate with your ability to pay proper attention to "Belgium's Famous Painter." Don't see anything else that day, come back later for the other various highlights that have earned this museum the title of "#1 Museum Worldwide". There are well over 100 works by Ensor to absorb and if you do it any justice - you will be exhausted by him alone. You won't be close enough to dig him up and shake his hand in that same day but you might do him a fine service to subsequently spend the afternoon skating in the park. Then go north to Hop Leaf and have mussles and some geueze. Delare yourself thereafter an honorary citizen of Ostend via Chicago.