James Ensor: Skeletons Warming Themselves

By Jonathan Shih

Ensor's work fell between several movements, including Symbolism, Expressionism and even Impressionism.  Much of his work was political or had religious meanings, yet he seemed to always mask those ideas behind fantastical images

Ensor is regarded as one of the most original painters of the late 19th century. Populated with masks and skeletons, his images are morbid commentaries on the human condition, his hometown of Ostend on the north sea, Belgian hustory, and his own mortality. Human bones were regularly uncovered in Ostend well into the 20th century,  residue of the carnage there during early 17th century warfare; Ensor retained childhood memories of their exhumation. In 1888, he made a little etching of himself as a reclining skeleton in slippers, entitled "My Portrait in 1960" (at age 100!)

Belonging to a group of closely related paintings from the late 1880s, Skeletons Warming Themselves is considered one of Ensor's masterpieces. He's placed three dressed-up skeletons in the foreground around a stove on which is written "Pas de feu", and under it "En trouverez vous demain?" – "No fire. Will you find any tomorrow?" The skeletons are accompanied by a palette, a brush, a violin and a lamp. Presumably, Ensor intended these items to symbolize art, music and literature. If so, the probable implication is that artistic inspiration, or patronage to support it, has expired. Understood as a scene in an artist's studio, the painting resembles a vignette from the popular Medieval and early Renaissance print cycles of the Dance of Death, each print portraying skeletons as an allegorical comment on the vanities of a particular profession or social type. X-rays reveal another finished picture beneath this scene. It is a bust-length portrait of a young girl, likely painted before 1883. Ensor's re-use of an earlier canvas may reflect his own difficult economic condition in 1889.

"Skeletons Warming Themselves", 1889

Oil on canvas

76.2 x 60.96 cm. (30 x 24 in.)

Kimbell Art Museum

Fort Worth, Texas