The following work is Copyright © 2008 Mitul Mistry.

 

 

When confronting The Entry of Christ into Brussels in 1889 by James Ensor, it is easy to become overwhelmed. It is a cacophonous composition, a depiction of humanity crowded to the very edges of the canvas, of their world, and wading one's way through such a work can be a rather disconcerting prospect. A Symbolist and Expressionist work of 1888-89, The Entry is a work that defies easy categorization. However, upon considering the elements that compose the image, as well as taking in the work as a whole, it can be clearly seen that embedded within its surging crowds and discordant structure lies a deep and scathing social criticism derived from the very heart of the artist himself.

 

 

 

James Ensor, The Entry of Christ Into Brussels in 1889

The overwhelming first impression of the work can be attributed to the sheer density of its grotesque denizens, but also to its sense of variety, the individuated figures merging together, receding into the background, forming a throng of incalculable magnitude. Often lost when viewing reproductions of the painting is its massive scale; at over fourteen feet wide and eight feet high, looking into the depths of such a sized crowd suddenly becomes much more overwhelming.¹ The distorted faces of characters stare out in every which way, the ones to the foreground visible in unsavory levels of detail, depictions of individuals composing the greater mass. Whether it be a man wearing the face of a skull or a fat bishop leading the way, it becomes obvious that these are individuals whose visages are either masks or mask-like in nature. But as space recedes, anonymity sets in, and in thicker and thicker volumes. The marching band stretches horizontally under the banner, vaguely individuated, acting as a vanguard for their guest of honor. Behind them, the crowds devolve into totally anonymous masses, nothing more than vague throngs of humanity many times the magnitude of those whom the viewer can see more clearly in the foreground. As space is flattened and perspective distorted, the crowds seemingly come to exist on the same plane, the plane of the canvas itself. Amidst it all, of course, rides Christ on his donkey, totally lost amidst the seething crowds that engulf him, the masses that threaten to consume the entirety of the picture plane itself.

After initially digesting the spectacle, however, one is left wondering why someone would bother to paint such discordant madness. After all, as Robert Rosenblum and H. W. Janson put it, “...the painting must have appeared... an astonishing assault on any conventions of beauty, in which the harsh ugliness of the subject is matched by bilious color, compositional confusion, and the violent collapse of a one point perspective scheme.”² The Entry is disconcerting in both its stylistic depiction of humanity as well as its compositional structure, but it exists as such in order to truly plunge the depths of what it means to live in the world as Ensor sees and experiences it.

In order to understand the bizarre and ugly world of Ensor depicted in The Entry, one must at least briefly consider the sources from which it is derived. He lived surrounded by all manner of strange objects from his mother's gift and novelty shop: dolls, exotic toys, masks.³ As Benson states, “...his life was almost completely confined to the city of his birth, Ostend... he could see the summer-carnival revelers with their masked lunatic disguises, hear the shuffling of their slippered feet and their boisterous ribaldry. Here was Babylon... Here was gluttony, jealousy, love, hate, the intrigue of whispered words, and the 'exquisite turbulence' Ensor loved. These were the human threads from which Ensor's dreams were woven into paintings and prints.”⁴ When artists weave their work, they abstract, but they abstract from sources, and upon considering this, it becomes obvious that through his experiences living in the urban environment of Ostend and, more importantly, amidst the people of Ostend, Ensor developed a personal view of humanity that is deeply rooted in his life experiences, upbringing, and environment. After considering the personal nature of Ensor's visual interpretation, one can approach The Entry realizing that it is a window into the eyes and the mind of Ensor himself.

As soon as one does this, the work transforms from an image of vague societal discontent into a painting of raw, unrestrained power, rife with the currents of social criticism. The work is engulfed by the crowd, the mass of humanity, and is, indeed, embodied by it, but, as a consequence, it lacks a real sense of focus or, specifically, a central figure. Christ, seen in numerous artistic works anywhere from the age of the Byzantines to the Renaissance and beyond as a central guiding figure, is nothing more than a shadow, a low contrast form in the background. As Jonsson states, “Without any authoritative point of identification, the figures are freed from the external power that enables them to anchor their being in the constancy of a stable character.”⁵ Ensor paints a portrait not simply of the vulgar masses, but of the masses as he sees them, freed from authority, from rules, from designations and delineations, allowed to inhabit a world where their true spirit can exist, unadorned. And when one bears witness to the oncoming horde as they are, one can do nothing but recoil in horror. It is not an aristocratic stance, looking at the masses as Plebeian, for “Judge, bishop, minister, mayor, chief of police, general, doctor, and intellectual are resolutely forced into the howling crowd,” as Jonsson puts it.⁶ With The Entry, Ensor looks upon not simply a class or division of humanity, but humanity as a whole, and describes it as a society that is capable of doing nothing more than reveling idly, purposelessly, and ignorantly, even as their purported savior rides amongst them. And as revelers “vomit and defecate” in the background,⁷ one is faced with Ensor's implication that perhaps we are not so sophisticated and worthy as we may perceive ourselves to be.

But upon examining this crowd of the perverse, the faces that the figures wear, though ultimately coalescing into a greater mob, are distinct and individual. This is not a homogeneous mob, but a heterogeneous one, and when faced with such an oncoming horde, questions of identity, societal place, and role naturally come to mind. Yet if Ensor is painting modern human beings as they are, why then paint them as if they wear masks, elements which normally would hide identity rather than expose it? As Jonnson writes, “In his work, men and women fail to appear in their natural guises, for they have none. One's identity is in itself a mask, fabricated, wrinkled, and scarred through countless encounters with others,” and as such, the individual becomes a strange mix of unique personality and stereotype imparted by the mask; they exist both individually and as part of a crowd, “suspended midway between identity and anonymity, humanity and bestiality.”⁸ This is how Ensor sees man's place in society, as nothing more than a strange hybrid of creature and man, of weak identity and facelessness, struggling to exist and survive and, ultimately, failing, become nothing more than another mask in the masquerade that is modern human society.

Looking back upon The Entry as a period piece, it can be seen as a reflection of Ensor's world as he saw it during his lifetime. But the social implications of this painting extend far beyond the era of its making. If Ensor lived in our time, and he were to paint his rendition of a Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, or Mardi Gras, how much fundamental difference would there really be? What would an Entry of Christ into New York in 2008 look like? Has societal identity truly become any more defined or enriched, or do we simply like to think that it has? The power of the piece lies not only in its description of human state during its own time period, but in its expression of the human condition and its relationship to an urban, massive society for all time, as well as the ultimate potential for hideousness that lurks not so far beneath the facade of civilization.

Yet upon looking at the painting one last time, a certain familiar face seems to stand out from the lower left corner, the skull visage of death, a haunting presence in many of Ensor's works, lingering above all the trivialities of human existence. To quote Johnson, “As the masks reveal what men are, Death shows what they shall become.”⁹ Through it all, Ensor reminds us that if we want to figure it all out, we ought to do so soon, for we only have so much time before it's too late.

 

 

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