The Intrigue

The Intrigue, dated 1911 and held in the Minneapolis Institute of Art, is a major later work in which Ensor returns to the masked crowd subject that had defined his most radical production of the late 1880s. The 1888 painting of the same title in Antwerp's Royal Museum is one of his acknowledged masterpieces; the 1911 version represents a late reinvestigation of the subject with the different — more assured, somewhat more relaxed — handling of his mature years. Masked figures pressing together, whispering, conspiring, and performing create a vision of human society as a theater of disguise and manipulation. The title connects these masked figures to political and social conspiracy, giving the carnival imagery a satirical edge directed at collective human behavior.

The crowded composition of masked figures requires careful differentiation of faces — each mask distinct — within an overall press that denies individual escape from the collective. Ensor's 1911 handling is broader and more fluid than the 1888 original, but the compositional intelligence organizing the crowd's visual rhythms remains characteristically assured.