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Street View: the Expressive Face of the Public in James Ensor's 1888 Christ's Entry Into Brussels

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Street View: the Expressive Face of the Public in James Ensor's 1888 Christ's Entry Into Brussels © COPYRIGHT by Patricia L. Bray 2011 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED STREET VIEW: THE EXPRESSIVE FACE OF THE PUBLIC IN JAMES ENSOR’S 1888 CHRIST’S ENTRY INTO BRUSSELS IN 1889 AND ERNST LUDWIG KIRCHNER’S 1913-15 STRASSENBILDER SERIES BY Patricia L. Bray ABSTRACT This thesis analyzes in tandem James Ensor’s 1888 Christ’s Entry into Brussels in 1889 and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s 1913-15 Strassenbilder series. Current interpretations of these paintings often emphasize a narrative reading of the artists’ personal expressions of the struggle of the individual against the angst and dysfunction of society. I explore the artists’ visualizations of the modern urban street and the individual in a crowd. In addition, I contextualize the environment of rapid modernization and fin-de-siècle anxiety, and the anti-institutionalism of Les XX and the Brücke. This thesis challenges the assumptions upon which current art-historical interpretations are constructed by examining the artists’ work within contemporary cultural discourse, crowd theory, and sociological scholarship, and through close visual readings of the artists’ formal strategies. I argue that Ensor and Kirchner deployed conscious aesthetic strategies in compositional distortion, antithesis and masquerade to explore the conflicting impulses, contumacy, and ambiguity of the modern moment. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to express sincere gratitude to my thesis advisor, Professor Emerita Norma Broude, for her support, guidance, insight and inspiration. I would also like to express sincere appreciation to Professor Juliet Bellow for participating on my thesis committee and for her support of my academic endeavors. In addition, special thanks are due to the faculty in the Art History Department: Professor Helen Langa for her generous guidance in the production of this thesis, and Professor Kim Butler for her advice and intellectual inspiration. Finally, special appreciation is due to the American University Art History Department and to Professor Carol Bird Ravenal for a travel award in support of my research. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT........................................................................................................................ ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .................................................................................................iii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS............................................................................................. vi CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................ 1 Evolving Views of James Ensor’s 1888 Christ’s Entry into Brussels in 1889............................................................................................................. 4 Evolving Views of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s 1913-15 Strassenbilder....... 8 CHAPTER 2 LE BOULEVARD AND DIE STRASSE: POLITICS OF PLACE............................................................................................................ 14 James Ensor: Background and Artistic Community: Les XX .................. 14 Socio-Political Background of Les XX .................................................... 16 Socio-Political Engagement of Ensor’s Art.............................................. 19 Political Iconography of Christ’s Entry into Brussels in 1889................. 20 Political and Social Clues to Christ’s Entry from Ensor’s Graphic Works.......................................................................................... 21 Kirchner and the Brücke: Internationalism, Urban Brücke, and Motifs of Change.................................................................................................. 26 Brücke in the City ..................................................................................... 29 Brücke: City vs Country ........................................................................... 34 CHAPTER 3 ANXIETY AS A FIN-DE-SIÈCLE CONDITION IN THE MODERN CITY................................................................................................... 38 Identity Crises in Comparison with Paris ................................................. 38 iv The City: “Sexualized Symbol of the Evils of Modernity” ...................... 40 Progress, Technological Change, and Multivalence of the Political and Social Moment.......................................................................................... 44 CHAPTER 4 THE CROWD AND THE PUBLIC: WHO ARE THE PEOPLE ON THE STREET?............................................................................................... 49 The Metropolitan Model of the Modern Public........................................ 49 Crowd Theory: How Were Collected Masses Viewed in Contemporary Europe? ..................................................................................................... 52 Belgium, Ensor and the Crowd................................................................. 56 Rendering Motion and Space: Anti-academicism, Landscape Composition and the City View................................................................ 66 Kirchner’s Street: Urban Darkness, Pessimism, and Foreboding............. 68 Berlin: Articulation of the Street............................................................... 73 CHAPTER 5 AMBIGUOUS IDENTITY, ARTIFICIALITY, PERFORMANCE AND MASQUERADE IN THE CROWD ........................................................... 83 Streetwalkers: Ambiguous Practice .......................................................... 83 The Face: Masquerade and Expression..................................................... 88 Masking, Antithesis, and Formal Contrasts.............................................. 91 Costume, Artistic Identity, and Caricature ............................................... 95 The Individual, Commodity, and Stereotype............................................ 98 Masking, Dissimulation, and Power ....................................................... 101 CHAPTER 6 CONCLUSION ............................................................................ 104 APPENDIX A ILLUSTRATIONS................................................................................. 107 BIBLIOGRAPHY........................................................................................................... 114 v LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Figure 1. James Ensor, Christ’s Entry into Brussels in 1889, 1888, Oil on canvas, 252.5 x 430.5 cm, Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum..................................... 107 2. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Five Women on the Street (Fünf Frauen auf der Strasse), 1913, oil on canvas, 120 x 90 cm, Cologne, Germany, Museum Ludwig.......... 107 3. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Berlin Street Scene (Berliner Strassenszene), 1913, oil on canvas, 121 x 95 cm, New York, Neue Galerie New York and Private Collection............................................................................................................ 107 4. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Street, Berlin (Strasse, Berlin), 1913, oil on canvas, 120.6 x 91.1 cm, New York, Museum of Modern Art........................................ 107 5. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Street Scene (Friedrichstrasse in Berlin) (Strassenszene [Friedrichstrasse in Berlin]), 1914, oil on canvas, 125 x 91 cm, Stuttgart, Germany, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart. ....................................................................... 107 6. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Two Women on the Street (Zwei Frauen auf der Strasse), 1914, oil on canvas, 120.5 x 91 cm, Düsseldorf, Germany, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen........................................................................................... 108 7. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Potsdamer Platz, 1914, oil on canvas, 200 x 150 cm, Berlin, Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin......................................... 108 8. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Women on the Street (Frauen auf der Strasse), 1915, oil on canvas, 126 x 90 cm, Wuppertal, Germany, Von der Heydt-Museum.......... 108 9. James Ensor, Hop Frog’s Revenge, 1885, lithograph, 37.7 x 26.5 cm, Ghent, Museum voor Schone Kunsten. .......................................................................... 108 10. James Ensor, Hop Frog’s Revenge, 1898, etching on Japan paper, heightened with watercolor, 35 x 24.2 cm, Ostend, Private Collection Ostend, courtesy Galerie Seghers................................................................................................................ 108 vi 11. James Ensor, The Lively and the Radiant: The Entry of Christ into Jerusalem, 1885, black and brown crayon with pasted-on paper, mounted on canvas, 206 x 150.3 cm, Ghent, Museum of Fine Arts.................................................... 108 12. James Ensor, The Entry of Christ into Brussels, 1898, etching, heightened with watercolor, 24.8 x 35.5 cm, Ostend, Museum voor Schone-Kunsten. ............... 108 13. Erich Heckel, Landscape in Dresden (Landschaft bei Dresden), 1910, oil on canvas, 66.5 x 78.5 cm, Berlin, Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin.. 109 14. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Tightrope Walker (Drahtseiltanz), 1908-10, oil on anvas, 120 x 149 cm, New York, Neue Galerie New York................................ 109 15. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Elisabeth Bank (Berlin) (Elizabeth-Ufer [Berlin]), 1912, woodcut, 20.3 x 23.5 cm, Oregon, The Helen Thurston Ayer Fund, Portland Art Museum.......................................................................................... 109 16. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Tramway Arch (Stadtbahnbogen), 1915, lithograph, 50.5 x 59 cm, New York, Collection of Catherine Woodard
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