Death Pursuing the Human Herd

The packed crowd in this city street seen from above is punctuated by an army of scythe-bearing skeletons personifying Death. A seeming regiment of them is dispersed throughout the mass of people, while a large, hairy-headed skeleton bears down on the roiling masses from the sky. The horrified expressions of the crowd, a drunkard vomiting from a tavern window on the right, hybrid demons in the sky, a burning rooftop, and a grimacing orb above it all contribute to a hellishly frightening scene.

Skeletons and imaginative demons have a long history in European religious imagery. James Ensor, a prominent painter in the Belgian avant-garde of the 1880s and 1890s, was well-schooled in the art of his predecessors. Yet it was his view of contemporary Belgian society, governed by a predominantly Catholic state, that fueled his often carnivalesque scenes.