James Ensor (April 13 1860 – November 19, 1949) was the post-impressionist/early expressionist artist who gave the world Christ’s Entry into Brussels in 1889.
My “bucket list” has never been long. But from the time I fell in love with this painting at first sight from the plate in some modern art text, seeing the original, in person, larger than life size was on it.
Because Christ’s Entry into Brussels in 1889 is a huge work, the size of an entire wall, larger than life.
That plate in our modern art book could never do it justice.
Time passed.
And then, my dad died.
We had a memorial service for him in California, where he was born and grew up and lived for most of his life, and still had family and friends. My daughter and I planned to spend a few more days in California, seeing things that she would be seeing for the first time and that I would be seeing once again.
Except for one.
Now whenever I see this painting [like today, when it is the picture of the day on Wikimedia Commons!] I instantly think of that beautiful day in October, and my beautiful daughter, and our trip to the Getty Museum, and our time together in California, and my father, and all of it is like a happy dream, and a farewell present, for which I am deeply grateful.
Matters of Interpretation 