L'Exécution

Executed during the artist’s most prolific period, L’Exécution encapsulates James Ensor’s penchant for cynicism alongside his deep engagement with his Flemish heritage. His native land imbues the architectural setting of the image, notably through the windmill overlooking the scene, and even shapes the picture’s composition. Indeed, Gisele Ollinger-Zinque notes a reference to Bruegel in the clusters of figures arranged throughout the picture plane (F.-C. Legrand, Ensor, cet inconnu, Brussels, 1971, p. 65).

These medieval characters gather in a macabre procession to witness an execution unfolding before a seemingly religious edifice, a structure that recalls Bruegel’s infamous representations of the Tower of Babel and the divine retribution visited upon human hubris. Referencing La Cathédrale, one of Ensor’s most notorious etchings, Wilhelm Fraenger described the edifice as a moribund entity, drawing toward it the vices and excesses of the crowds swarming at its feet (W. Fraenger, 'Die grafischen Künste', in: Chefs-d’œuvre de la gravure européenne 1410-1914, Munich, 1965, p. 232).

Considering this interpretation and the recurring themes that shape Ensor’s oeuvre, L’Exécution emerges as a grotesque spectacle in which biblical imagery is recast as a satirical critique of social hypocrisy and institutional authority. The absurdity of the mise-en-scène, heightened by its caricatural figures and the crowd’s blind convergence toward death, echoes the disquiet of an era grappling with the unsettling transformations of modern life. In this way, the work resonates with the broader sentiment shared by artists of the period, confronting the alienation and moral ambiguity brought about by accelerating urbanisation and societal change.