James Ensor, Skeletons Fighting over a Hanged Man, 1891

by Atelier Liesjes

Against a pale white wall, with a skirting board in a strip of indigo, a doll-like figure in a long white shirt hangs from a rope. Her face is a mask with bulging eyes and a long nose; a sign bearing the word CIVET hangs from her chest, and a tuft of feathers protrudes from above her head like a crown. Two skeletons are fighting over the hanged figure. On the left stands a skeleton in a dark cloak trimmed with fur and a hat with green feathers, a long stick in its hand. On the right, a skeleton in a cornflower-blue jacket and a bright red skirt raises a broom. Between them lies a third skeleton on the floor, wearing a red-and-white striped skirt. Through the open doors, rows of masks crowd together: red, green and pale pink faces with gaping mouths. The paint is applied thinly and sparingly in chalk white, sage green, brick red and cold blue; the floor is pale lilac, the walls yellow-white like lime. The space resembles a stage with a painted backdrop; the bodies are angular and unbalanced, their gazes fixed. Ensor blends the macabre with the burlesque: death squabbles over a corpse like market traders over a carcass. This mixture of mockery, fear and popular theatre is characteristic of his symbolist fantasy, in which masks and skeletons take the place of people.
James Ensor (Ostend 1860 – Ostend 1949) studied at the Brussels Academy and was a co-founder of the avant-garde group Les XX in 1883. His masks, skeletons and fairground scenes made him one of the most idiosyncratic painters of Belgian Symbolism; the 1889 work *The Entry of Christ into Brussels* is regarded as his masterpiece. His father and mother ran a shop in Ostend selling souvenirs and masks, so he was surrounded by such faces from childhood onwards. This canvas bears his signature in the bottom right-hand corner. A grim, theatrical work for lovers of Belgian Symbolism.