The Intrigue

Ensor’s Intrigue is certainly intriguing. A woman has got her man. She presents her ‘conquest’ with a gesture of her hand. In her other hand, she holds a small bouquet. Are they married? Perhaps. Grotesquely comical, sinister faces surround the couple. A coarse-faced woman carries a doll on her shoulder. Or is it a dead child? She points to the man - his fate is uncertain. A skull with a loose jawbone observes the scene. Intense, aggressive colour contrasts and rough, nervous brushstrokes intensify the ugly atmosphere.

The Intrigue is one of the finest masquerades in James Ensor’s entire oeuvre. Masks customarily hide the true face of their wearers. In Ensor, they function in precisely the opposite way. From 1880 onwards, the ‘peintre des masques’ used these disguises to reveal the inner malice of his characters in scenes that are bizarre and grotesque. Some art historians have interpreted this work as Ensor’s personal vision of marriage. The bride has captured the groom. There’s nowhere for the poor man to go.

Masks offered James Ensor new expressive possibilities. You only have to look at the abrupt colour transitions in The Intrigue. The aggressive contrasts of unmixed colours are equally striking. Ensor allows light and colour to blend into one another, a technique he learned from the French Impressionists. They used pure colours on the white ground of the canvas, without the traditional underpainting, and with as few shadows as possible.