Caesar's Denarius
Date
1888Period
19th centuryCollection
Museum of Fine Arts Ghent
Ensor qualified this print as the most classical of his compositions. The figures are almost all derived from Michelangelo's ceiling paintings in the Sistine Chapel and his sculpture "The Risen Christ" in the Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome. An extensive series of articles on Michelangelo appeared in the Gazette des Beaux-Arts in 1876. Ensor probably knew the figure of…
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Ensor qualified this print as the most classical of his compositions. The figures are almost all derived from Michelangelo's ceiling paintings in the Sistine Chapel and his sculpture "The Risen Christ" in the Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome. An extensive series of articles on Michelangelo appeared in the Gazette des Beaux-Arts in 1876. Ensor probably knew the figure of Christ from that issue, and the sculpture is also depicted in the Gazette des Beaux-Arts. The four other protagonists in the print are all characters from the Sistine Chapel, with, from left to right, the Pharisee with the top hat, the prophet Ezekiel (the figure with his cloak folded over his head), the prophet Isaiah and one of the so-called 'ignudi', representations of naked idealised men. The male and female heads on the left also show a strong affinity with Michelangelo's figures in the Sistine Chapel.
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