James Ensor : sterben für die Unsterblichkeit : Meisterwerke der Grafik /

Published to accompany the first major Ensor exhibition in the United States in nearly a decade, this catalog by Swinbourne (assistant curator, dept. of painting & sculpture, MoMA) deals with a particularly productive period in the artist's life, 1880 to the mid-1890s, a time of transition from dark realism and impressionistic studies to brilliantly colored visionary art. During this decade, Ensor began to focus more and more on his drawings, many of which he referred to as "visions" or light studies; the next step was the production of etchings, in his view the media that would allow his work to survive far longer than painting or drawing. Although landscape and light continued to intrigue him, his fascination with masks and satire, the grotesque and the bizarre, became intense during this period, and many of the works in the exhibition deal with this theme. Verdict Although interesting points are made, the featured essays tend to be turgid and repetitive. Still, this stands as a contribution to the literature because of its comprehensiveness and the opportunity to view many of the lesser-known works.-Paula Frosch, Metropolitan Museum of Art Lib., New York (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.