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Lot Essay
The authenticity of this work has kindly been confirmed by the Fondation Paul Delvaux, St. Idesbald.
'The 'poetic' quality of the painting itself forms an essential part of Delvaux's aesthetic. He discovered it, moreover, both in Ingres and other nineteenth century painters of the academic tradition and in Surrealists such as de Chirico. Delvaux has acknowledged that the influence of Ingres on him has been enormous (...).
It was in questioning both the unconscious oneirism of Ingres's pictures and the flagrant hallucinatory quality of de Chirico's work that Delvaux recognised the principle of unreality that, in effect, governs all painting. To problematise meaning while still presenting recognisable visual elements thus became Delvaux's method of creating the 'poetic' picture:
"For example, if I reproduce on the canvas these houses - which really exist in the fullest sense of the word - even with a certain realism, the mysterious presence of the naked woman or an unexpected person, not only detemporalises the scene and undermines it, but also offers a spectacle that, although apparently 'realistic', goes beyond time and conventional apprehension of reality. It signifies: that which is beyond appearances."'
(D. Scott, Paul Delvaux, Surrealizing the Nude, London, 1992, p.70)
'The 'poetic' quality of the painting itself forms an essential part of Delvaux's aesthetic. He discovered it, moreover, both in Ingres and other nineteenth century painters of the academic tradition and in Surrealists such as de Chirico. Delvaux has acknowledged that the influence of Ingres on him has been enormous (...).
It was in questioning both the unconscious oneirism of Ingres's pictures and the flagrant hallucinatory quality of de Chirico's work that Delvaux recognised the principle of unreality that, in effect, governs all painting. To problematise meaning while still presenting recognisable visual elements thus became Delvaux's method of creating the 'poetic' picture:
"For example, if I reproduce on the canvas these houses - which really exist in the fullest sense of the word - even with a certain realism, the mysterious presence of the naked woman or an unexpected person, not only detemporalises the scene and undermines it, but also offers a spectacle that, although apparently 'realistic', goes beyond time and conventional apprehension of reality. It signifies: that which is beyond appearances."'
(D. Scott, Paul Delvaux, Surrealizing the Nude, London, 1992, p.70)