CHICAGO, IL.- The Art Institute of Chicago is pleased to announce the publication of its first free online scholarly catalogue for a temporary exhibition, James Ensor: The Temptation of Saint Anthony.

The volume features new art historical and conservation research, presented in essays and videos, on Ensor’s monumental drawing The Temptation of Saint Anthony. The drawing is the centerpiece of the museum’s current exhibition Temptation: The Demons of James Ensor, which continues through January 25.

The Temptation of Saint Anthony, nearly six feet tall and composed of 51 separate sheets of paper, has been meticulously conserved by Art Institute paper conservator Kimberly J. Nichols, who also contributed an essay to the catalogue. The work was acquired by the Art Institute in 2006 but was never displayed because of its fragile condition. In the current Art Institute exhibition and the online catalogue, Nancy Ireson, Rothman Family Associate Curator, Prints & Drawings, builds a careful context around Ensor’s drawing with more than 100 other works by the artist, including important loans from the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent.

Born in the coastal town of Ostend, Belgium, Ensor (1860–1949) changed the course of avant-garde art in his country and beyond. The son of an English father and a Belgian mother, he began his artistic training at the age of 15. From 1877 until 1880, he attended the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, where fellow students included Fernand Khnopff and Theo Van Rysselberghe. Returning to his hometown, supported by the income of his family’s souvenir shop, he set up a studio in the attic of his parents’ home. His early work dealt with conventional themes: seascapes, bourgeois interiors, and copies of the Old Masters. It was only later in the decade that the skeletons, devils, and grotesques for which he is best known began to populate his drawings, paintings, and prints.

Ensor created The Temptation of Saint Anthony in 1887 at a time of great personal distress following the death of his father in 1885. The drawing explores the eternal theme of temptation, but rather than depict the saint besieged by the trials of centuries past, Ensor places his Saint Anthony at the mercy of modern life, surrounded by the evils of a brutal and turbulent world. Kneeling in prayer, Ensor’s Saint Anthony keeps his eyes tightly closed to political corruption, disease and sexual violence. Above Anthony’s head, in the rays of a rising sun, a sorrowful Christ wears a military helmet.

Catalogue essays explore the historical context and visual culture that influenced Ensor as he created the work; one brings to light never-before published letters written by the artist that help us better understand the drawing. Another essay focuses on the multiyear conservation and restoration of the drawing. The catalogue includes high-resolution imaging that allows readers to zoom in to see the artist’s marks in detail, as well as interactive components that show how Ensor overlapped various sheets. The publication is lavishly illustrated with more than 500 images.

A scaled down version of James Ensor: The Temptation of Saint Anthony also exists as a 144-page print catalogue, distributed by Yale University Press ($35).

Both the print and online catalogues are generously funded by the Regenstein Foundation. This is the Art Institute’s third online publication to utilize the ChicagoCodeX, which has served as the foundation of the open-source digital publishing platform OSCI Toolkit (oscitoolkit.com).