I like the paintings of Paul Delvaux. Considered a Surrealist – though not by self-definition – his vision is heavily inspired by the metaphysical landscapes of Giorgio de Chirico. Despite that it seems a little less bleak, a little less uncanny, a little more cozy and homely. You have nocturnal scenes (not the aggressive and desert-like daylight as in the landscapes of de Chirico) or scenes in deep twilight (i.e. in a state of transition), overwhelmingly depicting women, occasionally also children, men or skeletons within classical or regional-style architecture, and you usually have trains or stations which are usually not moving and seem misplaced and enigmatic. Nevertheless, they are there. It´s a dreamlike scenario, though not an unpleasant one. There seems to be peace, there surely is tranqility, there surely is grace. The delicate women have big eyes but seem to be de- or transpersonalised. They are otherworldly. You may see muses or animas in them, you may see Modigliani-like empathetic idealisations of women, you may see melancholy in them, you may protest against their sedatedness and reduction to „creatures“ by an eroticist painter. Yet, it all does not seem to fit. They remain – otherworldly. It´s a hypnotic realm. I like the trains. They seem to be our companions. I also, when recollecting memories from my childhood, like night trains. They are at work for us and for the people on duty when everything else is in slumber. They are honest and upright and in a gentle way forceful. Night trains make me feel the world is safe and protected from within. In the landscapes of Paul Delvaux you have loneliness, melancholia, aspiration, you have death. And you also have coexistence, maybe togetherness, maybe even communion, seemingly an essential communion as all elements seem to get alike in a universal substantiality; – women becoming statues, skeletons becoming humans, trains becoming individuals, etc. In these atemporal realms there seems to be a concurrece of life and death, it seems a threshold realm. Maybe a realm of suspended animation. A realm of transition, with trains coming out of nowhere, waiting to take you to an unknown or inexistent destination. The light that illuminates the nocturnal scenes often seems to come from someplace else. It seems a light from an enigmatic absolute, that illuminates a universal scenery of what can be depicted and what can be depicted not, what can be said and what can be said not, etc. It´s the threshold realm, and it´s the universal arena. I find these sceneries quite pleasant, although I do not know if it could be pleasant to live with all those sedated idiots and untouchable women and lost children for long. Paul Delvaux is not a heroic artist. He is said to have had maintained an intimate relationship with his childhood, out of which he painted and developed his vision. That is cozy and homely, there should be more of this in this world. It is clearly an inner sanctum he is revealing.
24.2.2021