James Ensor: Christ's Entry into Brussels in 1889 (Getty Museum Studies on Art)

James Ensor: Christ's Entry into Brussels in 1889 (Getty Museum Studies on Art) by Berman, Patricia. Paperback edition. ISBN: 9780892366415.

The brash young artist James Ensor painted Christs Entry into Brussels in 1889 during a period of extraordinary artistic and political fomentation in his native Belgium. It is one of the most dazzling, innovative, and perplexing paintings created in Europe in the late nineteenth century, rivaling any work of its period in audacity and ambition. Huge in scale, complex in design and execution, and brimming with social commentary, the startling canvas presents a scene filled with clowns, masked figures, and--barely visible amid the swirling crowds--the tiny figure of Christ on a donkey entering the city of Brussels. This insightful volume examines the painting in light of Belgiums rich artistic, social, political, and theological debates in the late nineteenth century, and in the context of James Ensors exceptional career, in order to decipher some of the paintings messages and meanings.