As the Ensor Year celebrations draw to a close, the Museum Plantin-Moretus in Antwerp offers an exceptional insight into the way James Ensor worked and experimented with various drawing and printing techniques.
‘Like looking over the artist’s shoulder’: unique etchings by Ensor on show in Antwerp
Sally Tipper
Published:
The renowned Ostend artist James Ensor died 75 years ago, and Flanders has been celebrating his life and work all year with activities in Ostend, Brussels and Antwerp.
The exhibition Ensor’s States of Imagination at the Museum Plantin-Moretus in Antwerp offers a wide selection of prints and drawings.
From his famous painting The Entry of Christ into Brussels – which now hangs in Los Angeles – Ensor later made an etching: a print etched into a copper plate using a caustic agent. The original copper plate and three versions of the print are now on display in Antwerp.
What is so beautiful about Ensor’s printmaking is that all the intermediate steps are equally important
Ensor made changes between the different versions, says curator Willemijn Stammis, by adding a face or changing a letter.
“A lot of printmakers work towards a certain goal, to create a perfect work of art,” says Stammis. “What is so beautiful about Ensor’s printmaking is that all the intermediate steps are equally important. He uses proofs and turns all those intermediate stages into unique works. With often funny, even bawdy additions. It’s very Ensorian.”
Ensor began making etchings aged 26. “He is a real draftsman and drawing on a copper etching plate suits him well,” says Stammis, but for the technical aspect he called on a graphic artist friend in Brussels.
A few years later, Ensor began to experiment himself, sometimes resulting in wild effects. “My hand is sulphur yellow and I have ruined 2 trousers and 1 waistcoat,” he wrote in a letter, after he failed to dilute the acid enough.
Starry Sky over a Graveyard is one such experiment, where the acid has bitten into the etching plate too strongly. The starry sky became a kind of nuclear explosion. “And yet I would not call this a failure,” says Stammis. “It is a beautiful and original work.’
The Museum Plantin-Moretus has a huge collection of modern prints, including over 200 by Ensor. A wide selection of these can be seen in this exhibition.
“This really gives a glimpse of his creative process, says Stammis. “We look over Ensor’s shoulder and follow him from the preliminary drawing to the etching plate and printing. These are unique prints, sometimes on coloured satin or vellum, or hand-coloured. Something that is very rare and can almost never be shown.”
The exhibition runs from 28 September to 19 January.
Meanwhile, the Groeninge Museum in Bruges is also showing some 30 prints and drawings by Ensor, some of which have never been exhibited before. These include the recently acquired coloured etching Death Dominates the Deadly Sins. Ensor: Master on Paper runs until 18 February.