James Ensor
Skeletons Fighting Over a Pickled Herring is a bizarre depiction so it is ideal for Halloween. :)
As you can see, it presents two skeletons with one herring in their jaws. One is wearing a fur hat. They are in a dog-style tug-of-war with a fish, suspended in a cloud-puffed sky.
James Ensor, the painter of this disturbing artwork was not his own best ambassador. He was paranoid, self-obsessed, and misanthropic. He chafed at criticism and compared himself to Jesus. At the same time, though, he was an innovative Belgian artist who was influential in shaping expressionism and surrealism, often overlooked. Isolated from his modernist peers in France and Germany (and often resentful of them), he managed to create a dreamy visual language all his own full of masks, skeletons, and later, religious scenes. Ensor's vivid critiques of Belgian culture are playfully subversive and scatologically immature. This painting may be a depiction of critics picking apart his work.
Today's herring encapsulates Ensor’s oeuvre—strange, well executed, understandable perhaps only to the artist himself—and yet undeniably fascinating.
Want to know more about James Ensor? Read our article "Everything You Must Know About James Ensor Paintings" on DailyArtDaily.com
Happy Halloween and see you tomorrow!