Ensor Research Project

Many myths surround the work of James Ensor. Indeed, the artist encouraged them. Like the idea that Ensor spent a long time pondering his compositions and often altered them. The Ensor Research Project explores the truth behind these myths. By going back to basics, to the work itself.
The Ensor Research Project’s central focus is on the creative process: from idea to finished painting. The researchers try in different ways to discover how Ensor set about working on a painting and what he meant by it, studying the KMSKA’s own collection and also collections held by other museums. The project is fundamental to establishing the KMSKA as the James Ensor centre of expertise.
While Ensor expert Herwig Todts puzzles over Ensor’s letters, Annelies Rios-Casier analyses the layers of paint. Their understanding of Ensor’s working method grows year on year.
James Ensor’s words
The researchers are sifting through the archives in search of texts written by James Ensor. He was an enthusiastic writer of letters, postcards, speeches and other texts for public consumption. All these together provide insight into his cherished artistic and social ideas and opinions. Why did Ensor use masks to reveal a person’s true identity? Why does his work contain so much satire? Why did he depict himself so often? Why did he cultivate the image of misunderstood artist?
The ERP tries to find the answer to such questions by studying Ensor himself.
Specialized photography
Another branch of the Ensor Research Project takes each painting in the collection in turn and penetrates the layers of paint, using specialized imaging technology such as infrared, X-rays and various fluorescence techniques. Each method sheds light on a different aspect of the creative process. While one process shows the pigments used, another reveals the underdrawing.

The Oyster Eater before restoration

UV image of The Oyster Eater

Infrared image of The Oyster Eater
Furthermore, each restoration spawns a wealth of information. To restore a painting to its former glory, the restorer needs to study Ensor’s working method. Apart from the specialized images, the restorer sees every millimetre of the work before him, every brushstroke, every grain of sand.
Grains of sand, indeed! The team found them on Ensor’s work, proof that he really did paint outdoors, on the beach.

James Ensor’s bathing machine

The microscope revealed grains of sand in the painting
Art history
The last pillar supporting the research is art history. However unique James Ensor may be as an artist, inspiration does not appear out of thin air. The researchers analyse Ensor’s iconography and style and compare them to those of contemporaries and predecessors. Literature proves a rich source of ideas. How critics, fellow artists and the public reacted to Ensor’s work tells us a great deal about the time in which he lived, the position he held both as an artist and a citizen. What place does Ensor really occupy in the long history of art? How was he innovative?
The answers to the many research questions should provide a complete picture of James Ensor, the artist and the man.
Our Ensor expert Herwig Todts published his findings in a voluminous monography, ‘James Ensor, Occasional Modernist. Ensor’s Artistic and Social Ideas and the Interpretation of his Art’.
If that scholarly publication is a little too lengthy for you, be sure to keep an eye on our communication channels for succinct articles on the research findings.
