James Ensor: A Master of Macabre Satire 

This channel has led me down a personal rabbit hole of art discovery. I've not only learned about artists I've never known about, but also learned new and interesting information about artists I admire.

Hey there.. I just wanted too say that i really appreciate your narration in your videos.. The piano and your words of choice always just really make these uploads very special.. I guess you can call me sensitive. But as i watch this im almost in tears.. Thanks Mr.Dweller.

Let us dig him up and shake his hand, and appreciate the man

I immediately got the They Might Be Giants song stuck in my head, and it's gonna be in there all day now.

I enjoy his style so much! It's like colourful enough to distinguish shapes and figures but the brushstrokes are blending and dancing together.

The art of James Ensor always connected with me. Especially in my own art allowing me to connect my mental illness and how I created art. Also it would be interesting if you ever did a video on the singer Daniel Johnston who was also an artist that went through terrible times with schizophrenia.

been waiting since the announcement yesterday 🎉

Oh this is a nice surprise !! Nit enough about James ensor amidst art these days

Thank you, thank you so much for your videos, your work. It is awesome to learn about other artists, well known or more niche. Listening to their story, their life, their art... As an artist myself, I still struggle to try new things (medium, styles...) and your videos help me change little by little (they at least plant the idea that I should try this or that, my motivation needs to do the rest). I also appreciate a lot the Artist Corner, because sharing art from old artists is great for a lot of reasons but discovering the work of today's people is very important too ! So much love to you Blind Dweller, and to everyone how has been featured on this channel for enriching my artistic culture :)

i feel so connected to this artist after this video and looking at his works. Just wow. This is amazing. Great work Blind Dweller, thank you for all the work you put in.

You have such a talent for delivering these documentaries in such an interesting and compelling way. The script and narration of your videos is just perfect, thank you for all your wonderful content!

I'm so happy you actually made a vid on James Ensor! He really is one of a kind. But even though the use of vibrant and contrasting colours is so characteristic of him, I find his more subtler works even more interesting. Especially stuff like "skeleton watching chinoiserie" (at least thats the german name in the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum in Cologne), "girl with a puppet" and "the scandalized masks" are so intriguing because of the ominous almost creepy atmosphere being conveyed the longer you look for details. On a side note: I've always wondered what your stance would be towards Italian Futurism or Futurist painting in general and if you'd consider making a video on that?

Your take on these artists strikes such a great balance - you inform us about them without some of the snobbery of others in the art world and you explain it in practical terms. I love art just for art and know what I like when I see it. Can I suggest an artist? I work in the behavioral health field and many years ago I was at a professional conference in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania here in the US. They had an exhibition of Adolf Wolfli's work at a local gallery. He was a late 19th/early 20th century artist with mental illness living in an asylum in Switzerland. His art helped him with his illness at a time when treatment was limited or could be barbaric. He produced a huge body of work. I've been fascinated by him for many years. Please consider him for your channel. Love the channel and always look forward to your videos!

Wonderful presentations, all of them! It is supremely ironic that masks, of course, do NOT die.

Thank you for the lovely videos Mr. Dweller!

exceptional video as usual. you've opened my eyes to a world of artists I would never have found on my own. Thanks to you (and the artists you cover and feature), I think I have begun to find my voice.

Your videos are better than the Art History classes zi took in college. Well Done!

Very Interesting there was a One Scene in Oldboy that have this Painting of James Ensor title ''Christ''.

Another amazing artist! It would be so difficult to be true to your art while people are putting it down and calling you crazy. Thanks so much !

Thank you for your work and all these great videos!

James Ensor is a very coplexe artist. The way the presenatator explain the innerworld of this satiiric and critical artist is remarcable! I discovered a an artist wich I didn't know so good. His characters are very scaring and show a dark side of his soul. The sufference, the solitude of this artist is a very known subject for me. I will follow also other video's of this canal.

This video is so well done, very informative and insightful. I particularly liked the slow scans of his art. I haven't been able to get that close to his work before. You can actually see brush and impasto strokes. I too wish I could shake his hand and yours as well for such a fine memorial to James Ensor. FearxxArt

I’ve been watching your videos for a bit now, and it’s finally coming in use for one of my art classes! I have to write about artists that are new to me whose work I find interesting, and these videos are PERFECT for that!

Great video, thank you.

I'm here because of the They Might Be Giants song!!

2024 marks the 75th anniversary of Ensor's death in 1949. There are currently several expositions on Ensor in Belgium including two in Brussels (BOZAR and the KBR), two in his native Ostend (Mu.ZEE and the Ensorhuis, his former home). The KMSKA in Antwerp houses the largest Ensor collection including The Intrigue, and there's two expos in Antwerp this Autumn (in the KMSKA and the Plantin-Moretus museum). The one noticeably absent painting is the Entry of Christ in Brussels which is in LA, but a full-scale tapestry of the work is currently on view in the BOZAR in Brussels. I'm just sharing this as an art enthusiast, but if you're interested: all museums are included in the national 'museumpassmusée' (€59).

thank you for your effort. enjoyed discovering this new artist :)

Never heard of this bloke, but I’m glad I did. Thank you for giving an overview.

Wow, one of my favorite artists you've shared. Great video 👏🏼

Your videos are beyond incredible, and deserve way more exposure :)Please consider doing a video about the works of Michael Zansky.

Love your videos so much

hah, that one They Might Be Giant's song about him that says "He lived with his mother and the torments of Christ" makes a lot of sense now that you mentioned sometimes Jesus would be an alter ego for himself in his paintings

I'm not sure you enjoy sculptures, performance art and controversy, but Sun Yuan and Peng Yu are artists who might be very interesting to make a video of. A lot of their practices are/were questionable (they used human body parts to make their art for example), but it's quite interesting how the onlookers reacted at the time and react now. I think now their art is even more abstract that it was back then.

I don't rightly know how I've lived fer over 37 years without hearin' tell o' this here Ensor fella but I'm sure glad to've heard it from you, good sir.

Reminds me of the works of clive barker and anna varney cantodea. I can't think of anyone else it reminds me of but when you mentioned 'grotesque becomes beautiful' they immediately came to mind 😅

Thank you for making this video. This really is a call back to my childhood when I saw his Self Portrait with Masks.

Strange and beautiful work.Thank you s much for all your work in this video, takes me to another world!

Christ’s Entry into Brussels is at The Getty. seeing it in person really blew me away! i fell in love with it even not knowing as much about the artist as i do now

I got the first comment!🎉🎉Thank you for all your hard work! Gonna watch this well I enjoy my morning ☕️ ☕️ ☕️ coffee.

Great video! I have now learned about two artists (James Ensor and Vincent Maslowski) of whom I'll want to research further. Another artist who might be a good subject for this channel is Steve Cutts (artist and animator.) Looking forward to your next episode!

I think that you should check out the artwork of famous British horror writer and artist, Clive Barker. His art has so many interesting features and ideas that relate to his life experiences. His art is some of my favorite, along with his novels.

This was wonderful! Thanks you for showing so many of Jame Ensor's amazing paintings. He is very little known outside the artistic mileu sadly. But slowly he is getting to be known more widely! It would be great if you can do a video of Fernand Khnopff. Meanwhile keep up the good work!

I love learning about these wonderful yet obscure artists. Have you done or would you consider a video on Salvatore Rosa?

Love your videos! Please do one on Oleg Tselkov!

Heyo! Swellgood work as always!

While "The Entry of Christ into Brussels" is generally upheld as the painter's overall signature work, the one that best exemplifies the Ensor style, the 1887 "Tribulations of Saint Anthony" discloses a more experimental side deserving of closer study. This particular painting is made striking by the extent of its abstraction and diffuseness; for example, the infernal denizens of the swirling tumult have none of the sharp definition one sees in H. Bosch, most notably, or Memling, Signorelli, or "Hell" Brueghel (or for that matter Max Ernst). Here the figures appear as mere calligraphic squiggles set against an impressionist background of plaster white daubed with cerulean sky blue. They resemble nothing more than the kind of minute drawing or doodlings casually scratched on post-it notes; and upon closer inspection they come across as more whimsical than malefic. Meanwhile the legendary desert anchorite, identifiable by the black cowl, inconspicuously occupies the lower foreground positioned to the left. He looks shrunken, half-hidden, occulted, in the midst of the phantasmagoria that's playing out around him. The saint's facial features, recessed within the black folds, elude ready definition or characterization; they look vaguely cadaverous with a white smear for gritted teeth. The hands hold open what could be a sacred book or tablet, perhaps as a protection against the pestiferous devils cavorting in his vicinity.The field that's left of the saint is dominated by grotesques, semi-human and bestial, whose sinister mien looks partially submerged in a vivid welter of dark cadmium red, black, crimson, and other colors. This tendency towards expressive abstraction and image distortion becomes much more pronounced in a work like "The Fall of the Rebellious Angels', which bears stylistic comparison with "Tribulations". Here, by means of what one could call an "unleashed illumination", the artist projects a world wherein all objects and figures seemingly dissolve in an apocalyptic cataclysm of color. The subject of the falling angels triggers a veritable explosion of such color with a violence that foreshadows the future expressiveness to be of Hans Hartung and, yes, Pollock. While the rendering of light in "Tribulations" is clearly Turner-influenced---with a central light source, semi-circular reflections, and corresponding effects of illumination on the water and in the sky---"The Rebellious Angels" , despite a very similar basic composition, invokes the wild and uncontrolled turbulence of a sheer inferno; it's a dramatic vision of cosmic warfare. Both paintings, unique amid the vastness of Ensor's oeuvre, shed light on his evolution towards a radically subjective and emotionally charged visual dynamic.

in my opinion it would be interesting a video about Cao Hui's art. His style is very unique and worth to discuss.

I’m begging for a video on Henry Dargar, please keep doing what you’re doing

I had seen his art or a bit of it anyways but did not know who did it.

L'intrigue used to hang in our family's living room when I was a child... I think it explains a lot about why I turned out the way I did🤭

Dude the culture is just changing and I think it's dope! It's fun to find your niche within the niche of tattooing. It just comes down to personal preference imo. And just saying... tattoo culture in Utah is so interesting bc of what Raina was mentioning.

I'm already way into this. This is the type of stuff I'd pull a heist for if I had the means.

👍👍😉😊

Great video! I don’t know if you’ll see this but it would be interesting if you could take a look at Stefan Burnett aka MC Ride of Death grips and his charcoal paintings

"His family considered his work as a waste of time." Been there, livin' that! lol

Poor Ensor. I can relate, buddy. Regarding your discussion of the angry Jesus painting from 1891... most ultra nice people are ultra nice to prove something to another person who was really bad in their lives. So what nice is just murder with a mask. How do I know this? Well, I have a fucked up life. Let's leave it at that.

I think I see how he might have influenced the Belarusian-French Jewish artist Chaïm Soutine. More on a side note, I'm imagining Ensor's fascination with masks is something that speaks to you, given your past video on the subject!

*"If you ask for a mask, it may not last (remember baron Ensor?)"* - from an old underground comix jam (Zap?)

I would love for us to find a journal of Ensor's where it says: skeletons are just so cool, imma paint them! 😂😂😂

Thats a cool skull yo.

Danse Macabre

Can someone confirm for me that the painting "Man of Sorrows" was featured in Oldboy?

Who else got here after playing Please, Touch The Artwork 2? :)

Do Gustave Dore

GUY FROM TMBG 🙀🙀🙀

Anyone else notice similarities between Ensor and Fellini

👁👁👍

In, *Christ's Entry into Brussels*, I've often thought Christ raises his hand in the same way Hltler did, and the players are just people playing their part and 'foIIowing orders'.

Ensor would've loved Slipknot lol

Thank you for this presentation & only because U asked for feedback: 4 U 2 "consider": The Real "spiritual" aspect Over the psyche aspect for many noteworthy artists. Cultures worldwide show various clown like images (Nephilim IMO) & similar depictions of "death" and same character "masks". Perhaps view various cultural "parades" for yearly pagan rituals and their costumes & demonic aka "evil deceiving spirits" masks and costumes. Perhaps Gotthard tunnel ritual/ ceremony, or Brazil "carnival"? The "Elite" "secret" aka occult ( hidden) gnosis (knowledge) passed in secret societies & orders worldwide perform "rituals" Not to The Creator fyi. TOP ones Know TRUTH of whom and what they worship. Lower levels depending on involvement do not. This hidden worship & what it involves is being exposed more & more but check soon NON mainstream 'cause it's being scrubbed. Note: The kingdoms down here R run by The Devil & his many legions. A fact Jesus Christ never denied when offered them in exchange for his worship that He refused fyi. NOT "religion of man" but historical writings recorded worldwide in many sources, Word & Bible and NON Canon books R excellent & YOUR Artists 4 studying "their" Gnosis & occult writings, rituals, practices. * SO many noteworthy artists show U their sufferings In & through their art. Some as self "therapy". * Paganini supposedly "possessed by a demonic spirit" played with broken violin strings. Purportedly he Cleared out an auditorium of patrons who ran in fear. Faustian "deals" even currently R retold to "hear". Even Bob Dillon admitted making a deal with the chief commander of this world and in the world U can't "see". ( still on yt 60 minutes segment fyi) * These Artists R telling U & Showing U. This is "Spiritually" discerned. Time is short. Marina Abramovic (known for her satanic worship, spirit cooking)+, just elected or nominated for Children's Ambassador" to the U.N. by Zelensky. One must learn to "see" & "hear" TRUTH. Ask GOD 1 on 1 earnestly with NO middleman. Jesus Christ's Name IS Sovereign over "them" and His GIFT is DONE. Finished. NO Strings & NO Works by us. We R All fallen fyi.

I sent you an email and Instagram message with some of my art :)

when will u have the balls to feature BEN GARRISON?

This is bad halloween crap not art. And, "Macabre Satire" is an oximoran.