Poster of the 1889 Les XX exhibition

Les XX was a group of twenty Belgian painters, designers and sculptors, formed in 1883 by the Brussels lawyer, publisher, and entrepreneur Octave Maus. For ten years 'Les Vingt' (pronounced French pronunciation: [lɛ vɛ̃]), as they called themselves, held an annual exhibition of their art; each year twenty international artists were also invited to participate in the exhibition. Artists invited over the years included: Camille Pissarro (1887, 1889, 1891), Claude Monet (1886, 1889), Georges Seurat (1887, 1889, 1891, 1892), Paul Gauguin (1889, 1891), Paul Cézanne (1890), and Vincent van Gogh (1890, 1891).

Les XX was in some ways a successor to the group L'Essor. The rejection of Ensor's 'The Oyster Eater' in 1883 by L'Essor Salon, following the earlier rejection by the Antwerp Salon, was one of the events that led to the formation of Les XX.

In 1893, the society of Les XX was transformed into "La Libre Esthétique".

History[link]

It was founded on 28 October 1883 in Brussels and held annual shows there between 1884 and 1893, usually in January-March. No president or governing committee. The group was formed by 11 artists dissatisfied with the conservative policies of the organization L’Essor and the official academic Salon. L'Essor ('Soaring') was set up also in opposition to the Salon, but with a strong bureaucratic element of twenty Essorians comprising a governing committee. Octave Maus (lawyer, journalist, art critic) acted as the secretary of Les XX, which was free of stifling regulations. The extent of governing was done by a rotating committee of three which organized the exhibitions. In addition to the twenty members, twenty international invitees would also exhibit. During the exhibitions, there were also literary lectures and discussions, and performances of new classical music, organised from 1888 on by Vincent d'Indy,^[1] with from 1889 until the end in 1893 very frequent performances by the Quatuor Ysaÿe.^[2]

Octave Maus, Edmond Picard and Emile Verhaeren (Belgian poet) were the driving force of the associated review, L'Art Moderne, created in 1881. There was a close tie between art, music and literature among the Les XX artists.

Eleven founding members[link]

• James Ensor 1860-1949 (member until 1893)^[3]
• Théo van Rysselberghe 1862-1926 (member until 1893)^[4]
• Fernand Khnopff 1858-1921 (member until 1893)^[3]
• Alfred William Finch^[4]
• Frantz Charlet b 1862^[4]
• Paul Du Bois^[4]
• Charles Goethals c1853–85^[4]
• Darío de Regoyos (Spanish)^[4]
• Willy Schlobach b 1864^[4]
• Guillaume van Strydonck 1861–1937^[4]
• Rodolphe Wytsman 1860–1927^[4]

Nine invited members[link]

• Guillaume Vogels
• Achille Chainaye 1862–1915
• Jean Delvin 1853-1922^[5]
• Jef Lambeaux^[5]
• Périclès Pantazis (Greek) 1849-1884^[5]
• Frans Simons 1855–1919
• Gustave Vanaise 1854–1902
• Piet Verhaert 1852–1908
• Théodore Verstraete 1850–1907

Twelve later invited members[link]

• Felicien Rops 1833-1898
• Georges Lemmen 1865-1916 (member from 1888)^[6]
• George Minne 1866-1941
• Anna Boch 1848-1926 (member from 1885-1893: only female member)^[7]
• Henry van de Velde (member from 1888)^[8]
• Guillaume Charlier
• Henry De Groux
• Robert Picard b 1870
• Jan Toorop (Dutch)^[9]
• Odilon Redon (French)
• Paul Signac (French)^[3]
• Isidore Verheyden (member from 1884-1888)^[7]

[edit] The ten Annual Exhibitions of Les XX, 1884-1893

The 1884, 1885 and 1886 exhibitions were held at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels. The later exhibitions were al held at the Museum of Modern Art of Brussels.^[10]

1884[link]

La Manneporte à Étretat, Claude Monet

The first of ten annual exhibitions was held on 2 February at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels.^[5]

Apart from the members of Les XX, there were exhibitions by Auguste Rodin, James Abbott McNeill Whistler and Max Liebermann.^[11]

Catulle Mendès discussed Richard Wagner.^[12]

1885[link]

Exhibition of Xavier Mellery^[5] and Jan Toorop.^[9]

1886[link]

Exhibits of Pierre-Auguste Renoir,^[3] Odilon Redon^[13] and Claude Monet, including Le pont d'Argenteuil and La Manneporte à Étretat.^[12]

First performance of César Franck's Violon Sonata.^[14]

1887[link]

Walter Sickert,^[15] Camille Pissarro, Berthe Morisot and Georges-Pierre Seurat exhibit, with Seurat and Signac present at the opening.^[3] The major work shown is Seurat's A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.^[4]

In July, Les XX had an exhibition in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.^[10]

1888[link]

Exhibits of Albert Dubois-Pillet,^[16] Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri-Edmond Cross, James Abbott McNeill Whistler,^[1] Paul Signac and Odilon Redon.^[3]

First performance of Vincent d'Indy's Poème des Montagnes.^[14]

Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam was one of the invited writers.^[12]

1889[link]

Camille Pissarro,^[4] Maximilien Luce,^[4] Henri-Edmond Cross, Gustave Caillebotte,^[1] Paul Cézanne,^[16] Albert Dubois-Pillet,^[16] Paul Gauguin and Georges Seurat exhibit.^[3] Included is Gauguin's masterpiece Vision After the Sermon.^[9]

At the first concert, the music was composed by César Franck, Pierre de Bréville, Ernest Chausson, Gabriel Fauré and Julien Tiersot. The music was played in part by the Quatuor Ysaÿe, as happened in the next few years.^[2] The second concert was centered around Gabriel Fauré, with additional music by d'Indy, Charles Bordes and Henri Duparc.^[2]

In July, Les XX had an exhibition in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.^[10]

1890[link]

Exhibits by invited artists including Odilon Redon,^[13] Paul Cézanne,^[1] Paul Signac, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec,^[6] Alfred Sisley, Paul Gauguin and Vincent Van Gogh.^[12]

Three concerts were given, with the first centered around Belgian composers like Auguste Dupont, Léon Soubre, Joseph Jacob, Paul Gilson and Gustave Huberti.^[2] The second and third concert focused on the French composers, with works by Fauré, Franck, d'Indy, and Castillon in the second concert. Vincent d'Indy performed his Symphonie Cévenole in the third concert.^[17] Other composers whose work was performed were Fauré, Franck, Bréville, Bordes, Chausson, Albéric Magnard and Paul Vidal.^[2]

Stéphane Mallarmé gave a lecture on Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam; Edmond Picard discusses Maurice Maeterlinck, Emile Verhaeren and Charles Van Lerberghe.^[12]

1891[link]

Exhibitions of Georges Seurat,^[3] Camille Pissarro,^[4] Alfred Sisley,^[12] and Jules Chéret.^[16]

First exhibitions of decorative art, including posters and book illustrations by Walter Crane, Alfred William Finch's first attempts at ceramics,^[18] and three vases and a statue by Paul Gauguin. Retrospective for Vincent Van Gogh. Catalogue cover designed by George Lemmen.^[19]

Memorial concert for César Franck and a second concert with new work by Vincent d'Indy,^[1] and work by other followers of Franck, including Bordes, Duparc, Bréville, Chausson, Tiersot, Vidal,and Camille Benoît. Also played was work by Fauré and Emmanuel Chabrier.^[2] A third concert focused on Russian composers, with works by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Alexander Borodin, Nicolas de Stcherbatcheff, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Alexander Kopylov.^[2]

1892[link]

Pottery exhibited by Auguste Delaherche, and embroidery designs by Henry Van de Velde.^[20] Invited artists include Maximilien Luce,^[4] Léo Gausson^[16] and Mary Cassatt.^[12]

Retrospective of Georges Seurat with 18 paintings, including La Cirque and La Parade.^[20]

Three concert evenings were organised. The first concert presented the first version of Paul Gilson's La Mer, Guillaume Lekeu's Andromède and music by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Alexander Glazunov, and Franz Servais.^[21] The second showcased music by Alexis de Castillon, César Franck, Charles Bordes, Louis de Serres and Emmanuel Chabrier.^[2] The final concert included the first performance of Vincent d'Indy's Suite in D and Ernest Chausson's Concert.^[14] The other music played was composed by Gabriel Fauré, Charles Bordes, Camille Chevillard and Albéric Magnard.^[2]

1893[link]

More design was exhibited, including a table by Alfred William Finch, embroidery by Henry Van de Velde, and objects by Alexandre Charpentier.^[20]

Paul Verlaine discussed the contemporary poetry.^[12]

The first concert was centered around work by César Franck and the first performance of Ernest Chausson's Poème de l'amour et la mer The second concert contained works by d'Indy, Castillon, Fauré, Chabrier and Bréville.^[2] The third and final concert featured the première of Guillaume Lekeu's Violin Sonata,^[14] with also performances of compositions by Charles Smulders, Paul Gilson, Dorsan van Reysschoot and Alexis de Castillon.^[21]

Notes[link]

Further reading[link]

Primary sources[link]

• Octave Maus: L’Espagne des artistes (Brussels, 1887).
• Octave Maus: Souvenirs d’un Wagnériste: Le Théâtre de Bayreuth (Brussels, 1888).
• Octave Maus: Les Préludes: Impressions d’adolescence (Brussels, 1921).
• Madeleine Octave Maus: Trente années de l'lutte pour l'art, Librairie L'Oiseau bleau, Bruxelles 1926; reprinted by Éditions Lebeer Hossmann, Bruxelles 1980

Secondary sources[link]

• Autour de 1900: L'Art Belge (1884-1918). London: The Arts Council, 1965.
• BLOCK Jane, Les XX and Belgian Avant-Gardism 1868-1894, Studies in Fine Arts: The Avant garde, Ann Arbor: UMI Research press, 1984.
• Les XX, Bruxelles. Catalogue des dix expositions annuelles, Brussels: Centre international pour l'étude de XIXe siècle, 1981.
• STEVENS Mary Anne & HOOZEE Robert (eds.), Impressionism to Symbolism: The Belgian Avant-Garde 1880-1900, exhib. cat. London: Royal Academy of Arts, London 7 July - 2 October 1994.

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Les XX

• Biografisch Lexicon: Plastisch Kunst in België

Look up les in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Look up Les in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

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James Ensor
James Sidney Ensor, bust, Artist: Edmond de Valériola, Location: Ostend, Belgium
Birth name	James Sidney Ensor
Born	(1860-04-13)13 April 1860 Ostend, Belgium
Died	19 November 1949(1949-11-19) (aged 89) Ostend, Belgium
Nationality	Belgian
Field	Painting
Training	Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts, Brussels (Belgium)
Movement	expressionism, surrealism
Influenced by	Hieronymus Bosch

James Sidney Edouard, Baron Ensor (13 April 1860 – 19 November 1949) was a Flemish-Belgian painter and printmaker, an important influence on expressionism and surrealism who lived in Ostend for almost his entire life. He was associated with the artistic group Les XX.

The Entry of Christ into Brussels, 1888, oil on canvas, 257 x 378 cm

Biography[link]

Ensor's father, James Frederic Ensor, born in Brussels of English parents,^[1] was a cultivated man who studied engineering in England and Germany.^[2] Ensor's mother, Maria Catherina Haegheman, was Belgian. Ensor himself lacked interest in academic study and left school at the age of fifteen to begin his artistic training with two local painters. From 1877 to 1880, he attended the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, where one of his fellow students was Fernand Khnopff. Ensor first exhibited his work in 1881. From 1880 until 1917, he had his studio in the attic of his parents' house. His only travels were three brief trips to Paris, London, and Holland.^[3]

During the late 19th century much of his work was rejected as scandalous, particularly his painting Entry of Christ into Brussels (1888–89), but his paintings continued to be exhibited, and he gradually won acceptance and acclaim. In 1895 his painting The Lamp Boy (1880) was acquired by the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels, and he had his first solo exhibition in Brussels.^[4] By 1920 he was the subject of major exhibitions; in 1929 he was named a Baron by King Albert, and was the subject of the Belgian composer Flor Alpaerts's "James Ensor Suite"; and in 1933 he was awarded the band of the Légion d'honneur. Even in the first decade of the 20th century, however, his production of new works was diminishing, and he increasingly concentrated on music—although he had no musical training, he was a gifted improviser on the harmonium, and spent much time performing for visitors.^[5]

Against the advice of friends, he remained in Ostend during World War II despite the risk of bombardment. In his old age he was an honored figure among Belgians, and his daily walk made him a familiar sight in Ostend. He died there after a short illness, on 19 November 1949.

Art[link]

Portrait of James Ensor
by Henry De Groux (1907), Kunstmuseum aan Zee, Ostend, Belgium

While Ensor's early works, such as Russian Music (1881) and The Drunkards (1883), depict realistic scenes in a somber style, his palette subsequently brightened and he favored increasingly bizarre subject matter. Such paintings as The Scandalized Masks (1883) and Skeletons Fighting over a Hanged Man (1891) feature figures in grotesque masks inspired by the ones sold in his mother's gift shop for Ostend's annual Carnival. Subjects such as carnivals, masks, puppetry, skeletons, and fantastic allegories are dominant in Ensor's mature work. Ensor dressed skeletons up in his studio and arranged them in colorful, enigmatic tableaux on the canvas, and used masks as a theatrical aspect in his still lifes. Attracted by masks' plastic forms, bright colors, and potential for psychological impact, he created a format in which he could paint with complete freedom.^[6]

The four years between 1888 and 1892 mark a turning point in Ensor's work. Ensor turned to religious themes, often the torments of Christ.^[7] Ensor interpreted religious themes as a personal disgust for the inhumanity of the world.^[7] In 1888 alone, he produced forty-five etchings as well as his most ambitious painting, the immense Christ's Entry into Brussels in 1889.^[8] In this composition, which elaborates a theme treated by Ensor in his drawing Les Aureoles du Christ of 1885, a vast carnival mob in grotesque masks advances toward the viewer. Identifiable within the crowd are Belgian politicians, historical figures, and members of Ensor's family.^[9] Nearly lost amid the teeming throng is Christ on his donkey; although Ensor was an atheist, he identified with Christ as a victim of mockery.^[10] The piece, which measures 99½ by 169½ inches, was rejected by Les XX and was not publicly displayed until 1929.^[11] After its controversial export in the 1960s, the painting is now at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, California.^[11] Also known as Christ's Entry into Brussels in 1889, it is considered "a forerunner of twentieth-century Expressionism."^[11]

As Ensor achieved belated recognition in the final years of the 19th century, his style softened and he painted less. Critics have generally seen Ensor's last fifty years as a long period of decline.^[8] The aggressive sarcasm and scatology that had characterized his work since the mid-1880s was less evident in his few new compositions, and much of his output consisted of mild repetitions of earlier works.^[12] Significant works of Ensor's late period include The Artist's Mother in Death (1915), a subdued painting of his mother's deathbed with prominent medicine bottles in the foreground, and The Vile Vivisectors (1925), a vehement attack on those responsible for the use of animals in medical experimentation.

Influence and legacy[link]

James Ensor is considered to be an innovator in 19th century art. Although he stood apart from other artists of his time, he significantly influenced such 20th century artists as Paul Klee, Emil Nolde, George Grosz, Alfred Kubin, Wols, Felix Nussbaum,^[13] and other expressionist and surrealist painters of the 20th century.

The yearly philanthropic "Bal du Rat Mort" (Dead Rat Ball) in Ostend continues a tradition begun by Ensor and his friends in 1898.

His works are in many public collections, notably the Modern Art Museum of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels, the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp, and the Museum voor Schone Kunsten in Ostend. Major works by Ensor are also in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Musée d'Orsay, Paris, and the Wallraf-Richartz Museum in Cologne. A collection of his letters is held in the Contemporary Art Archives of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts in Brussels. The Ensor collections of the Flemish fine art museums can all be seen at the James Ensor Online Museum.

The annual Dead Rat Ball is held in Ostend.

Ensor has been paid homage by contemporary painters^[14] and artists in other media: he is the subject of a song, "Meet James Ensor", recorded in 1994 by the alternative rock duo They Might Be Giants. The 1996 Belgian movie, Camping Cosmos, was inspired by drawings of James Ensor, in particular Carnaval sur la plage (1887), La mort poursuivant le troupeau des humains (1896), and Le bal fantastique (1889). The film's director, Jan Bucquoy, is also the creator of a comic Le Bal du Rat mort^[15] inspired by Ensor.

An exhibition of approximately 120 works by James Ensor was shown at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in 2009, and then at the Musée d'Orsay, Paris, October 2009–February 2010.

A portrait of James Ensor can be seen hanging in the room of Laurie Strode from the 1978 movie Halloween.

Notes[link]