An Inquiry Concerning the Self-Imaging in James Ensor’s Art

• Main Authors: Shu-Yun Huang, 黃素雲
• Other Authors: 李長俊
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2008
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/68655228161990438700

碩士 === 國立彰化師範大學 === 藝術教育研究所 === 96 === James Sidney Ensor (1860-1949) was a Belgian painter of the 19th century. After he suspended the schooling of the Académie des Beaux-Arts de Bruxelles in 1880 and joined the Les XX in 1883, the style of his paintings has changed significantly. Full of personal characteristic, he depicted himself in some works, so as to reveal some of his hitten relationship with the art word. This research analyzes these in terms of iconography to reveal the purpose of his self-imaging. Ensor began to draw a series of sketches with subjects tales from t the Holy Bible in 1885. Particularly in Le Calvaire (or Ensor en Croix) and Ecce Homo (or Christ et Les Critiques), Ensor used the suffering of Christ as a metaphor to innuendo his situation in the Belgian art world. He developed the L’Entrée du Christ à Jérusalem serial sketches into L’Entrée du Christ à Bruxelles en 1889. For the first personal exhibition of Paris in 1898, Ensor repainted L’Entrée du Christ à Bruxelles en 1898 again, and from he specially change these work title and relevant hints in his writing, further verify my inference that Ensor depicted himself as a Christ. These works also implied that Ensor support the social movement, opposed the Neo-impressionist and self-appreciation. Ensor not only described his predicament with the Belgian art world as a metaphor of the suffering Christ, but also created Les Cuisiniers Dangereux after the Les XX dismissed in 1893, with the meticulous composition and meaningful role to reveal the relation among Ensor, other artists and founder of the Les XX 's in the Belgian art world. While many scholars argued that there are two dangerous cooks in this work, my research suggests that there are another dangerous cook hiding in this work. Ensor's long-term entanglement and stalemate with the art world, seems to be all expressed these works revealing his thought on life. Through self-imaging and peculiar expression Ensor reached unique art function at the same time through these works, we would see the development from the 19th century to the 20th century in Belgium's modern art.