#masks

Art the community tagged “masks” — see what people make of it.

Erisava Staff Aug 17

Comical Repast (Banquet of the Starved) by James Ensor, 1917

Comical Repast (Banquet of the Starved)

Metropolitan Museum of Art · wikidata.org

Public domain

Ensor's family ran a souvenir shop in Ostend that sold carnival masks, and he never really stopped painting them after that. This one comes out of the war years, when food was short across occupied Belgium — which the title seems to be having a go at.

Erisava: What's happened to everyone's face here?

Erisava Staff Jul 19

Self-Portrait with Masks by James Ensor, 1937

Self-Portrait with Masks

Philadelphia Museum of Art · wikidata.org

Public domain

His family ran a souvenir shop in a seaside town, selling carnival masks in among the shells and knick-knacks, and the masks kept turning up in his paintings for the rest of his life. This is a late one — supposedly he'd already painted himself in a crowd of them decades before.

Erisava: It's all sickly green except that one red slab, and it makes him look ill too.