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Lot Essay
Painted in the spring of 1944, La Ville lunaire is a striking example of Paul Delvaux’s meticulously crafted painted reveries – worlds which are at once legible yet enigmatic, compelling yet tantalizingly impenetrable. Here, a disparate group of partially dressed and nude characters are gathered beneath the bright light of the moon, arranged in individual vignettes as they wander through a curious cityscape filled with classical architecture reminiscent of ancient Greek and Roman temples. Exuding a strange, disquieting sense of silence, this atmospheric tableau invites endless interpretations even as it resists a fixed reading, each element rendered in a recognisable and familiar manner, yet laced with mystery and uncertainty. La Ville lunaire showcases the key principles of Delvaux’s mature Surrealist style, as he delved into the unique world of his imagination, presenting reality as if seen for the first time in a more intense and startling way through the carefully coordinated and always slightly bizarre conjunction of imagery.
As with many of his contemporaries, Delvaux had come to Surrealism through the art of Giorgio de Chirico, whose mysterious and melancholic works he had first seen in 1926. De Chirico’s uncanny groupings of objects and empty cityscapes deeply influenced Delvaux’s conception of painting, showing him the way in which the everyday could be rendered uncanny through the artist’s intervention. In the 1930s, Delvaux found his own vocabulary of significant objects – trains, anachronistic architectural juxtapositions, nude women, nocturnal cities – and set about making pictures which offered intriguing variations on these central subjects. As war engulfed Europe towards the end of the decade, and Brussels came under Occupation, these elements became a source of solace and inspiration for Delvaux. He had initially tried to flee Belgium, only for his car to run out of fuel along the way, and spent the duration of the conflict in Brussels, retreating to his studio to work intensely on his paintings in a sort of internal exile. Despite his isolation and the oppressive atmosphere that enveloped the city during the War, Delvaux was struck by a burst of intense creative energy as his vision turned further inward, leading him to produce an important sequence of paintings that remain captivating to this day.
Created in the final months of this tense period, La Ville lunaire presents an otherworldly, escapist pictorial vision. In his 1941 article ‘The Artistic Genesis and Perspectives of Surrealism,’ André Breton perfectly captured a sense of Delvaux’s intense fascination with the female form, writing that the artist had transformed the universe ‘to make it the empire of Woman…,’ a sentiment felt strongly in works such as La Ville lunaire (quoted in B. Emerson, Delvaux, Antwerp, 1985, p. 225). At the heart of the composition stands a statuesque female figure, the lower half of her body draped in a soft chartreuse robe while her breasts and shoulders remain bare, her brunette locks cascading across her shoulders from a partially complete chignon. Shown in profile, she turns her head to the right, drawing the viewer’s eye to a second woman who appears from behind a curtain, her delicate fingers pulling back the dark green drape to reveal her nude form. Though they do not make eye contact with one another, there is a distinct sense of connection in their proximity and body language, as if the woman at the centre of the composition has heard her companion’s approach. To the right, a young couple seem oblivious to the other figures within the scene, the woman raising an arm to caress her lover’s cheek, while in the distance, two more female characters promenade past a reclining male figure, their heads bent in conversation.
Amid the array of lithe, softly curved bodies, however, an incongruous skeleton stands proudly in the middle of the thoroughfare as it cuts through the city, the light of the moon casting a long shadow onto the paved walkway. During the Second World War, Delvaux began to make regular visits to the Natural History Museum in Brussels, where in ‘an extraordinary room’ there were many skeletons ‘of all the animals in Creation in rows, as if in battle formation’ (P. Delvaux, quoted in Paul Delvaux 1897-1994, exh. cat., Royal Museum of Fine Arts Belgium, Brussels, 1997, p. 26). There Delvaux began to make serious studies of skeletons and this structural frame of the human being began to appear in his work as if alive, sitting in chairs, conversing in offices and later enacting scenes from the Passion. For Delvaux, skeletons were dynamic actors in his mise-en-scènes, not just inanimate still-life elements, representing a vivid impression of the framework beneath the smooth, porcelain bodies of his nude figures. ‘For me,’ he explained, ‘the skeleton is a very, very strong expression of the human being for under the skin there are bones. The skeleton is the image of the human being. It is alive, and I wished to create expressive scenes with skeletons’ (ibid.). In La Ville lunaire, the skeleton ambles nonchalantly through the cityscape, its back to the viewer as it makes its way towards the distant horizon, one hand lifted in a gesture that mirrors the draped female figure in the foreground of the work, establishing an intriguing pictorial symmetry.
La Ville lunaire was included in Delvaux’s first major retrospective, which took place in the winter of 1944 at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, just a few months after the city had been liberated by Allied forces. Organised by the artist, writer and collector, E.L.T. Mesens, this seminal exhibition launched Delvaux to national prominence, cementing his reputation as a leading member of the Belgian Surrealist movement. The painting was also among the selection of works included in the Biennale di Venezia in 1954 where, in celebration of the thirtieth anniversary of the founding of the Surrealist movement, the organizers had suggested a unifying theme across the show which focused on the concept of the fantastic in art. The event proved to be a watershed moment for Surrealism, consecrating its position in the history of modern art, alongside the likes of Fauvism, Cubism and Expressionism, though Delvaux’s work, which was on show in the large-scale exhibition at the Belgian Pavilion, was heavily criticized by conservative critics for its extensive use of nudity.
La Ville lunaire was loaned to the Biennale by Alex Salkin, a Belgian lawyer and art collector who was an important advocate for Belgian art following his emigration to the United States in 1940. In 1948 Salkin published an informational pamphlet, Modern Painting in Belgium, in which he singled Delvaux out as ‘a great visionary’ and noted: ‘The settings [of his pictures] are astonishing for their virtuosity of detail, as well as for the balance of composition. From the first glimpse, one is captivated by the majesty and grandeur of his work… He paints the settings of his dreams and the people by whom he is haunted… He reconstructs all this visible world, as though to give it freedom, within the topsy-turvy yet always poetically logical order of his vision’ (Modern Painting in Belgium, New York, 1948, pp. 62-63).
As with many of his contemporaries, Delvaux had come to Surrealism through the art of Giorgio de Chirico, whose mysterious and melancholic works he had first seen in 1926. De Chirico’s uncanny groupings of objects and empty cityscapes deeply influenced Delvaux’s conception of painting, showing him the way in which the everyday could be rendered uncanny through the artist’s intervention. In the 1930s, Delvaux found his own vocabulary of significant objects – trains, anachronistic architectural juxtapositions, nude women, nocturnal cities – and set about making pictures which offered intriguing variations on these central subjects. As war engulfed Europe towards the end of the decade, and Brussels came under Occupation, these elements became a source of solace and inspiration for Delvaux. He had initially tried to flee Belgium, only for his car to run out of fuel along the way, and spent the duration of the conflict in Brussels, retreating to his studio to work intensely on his paintings in a sort of internal exile. Despite his isolation and the oppressive atmosphere that enveloped the city during the War, Delvaux was struck by a burst of intense creative energy as his vision turned further inward, leading him to produce an important sequence of paintings that remain captivating to this day.
Created in the final months of this tense period, La Ville lunaire presents an otherworldly, escapist pictorial vision. In his 1941 article ‘The Artistic Genesis and Perspectives of Surrealism,’ André Breton perfectly captured a sense of Delvaux’s intense fascination with the female form, writing that the artist had transformed the universe ‘to make it the empire of Woman…,’ a sentiment felt strongly in works such as La Ville lunaire (quoted in B. Emerson, Delvaux, Antwerp, 1985, p. 225). At the heart of the composition stands a statuesque female figure, the lower half of her body draped in a soft chartreuse robe while her breasts and shoulders remain bare, her brunette locks cascading across her shoulders from a partially complete chignon. Shown in profile, she turns her head to the right, drawing the viewer’s eye to a second woman who appears from behind a curtain, her delicate fingers pulling back the dark green drape to reveal her nude form. Though they do not make eye contact with one another, there is a distinct sense of connection in their proximity and body language, as if the woman at the centre of the composition has heard her companion’s approach. To the right, a young couple seem oblivious to the other figures within the scene, the woman raising an arm to caress her lover’s cheek, while in the distance, two more female characters promenade past a reclining male figure, their heads bent in conversation.
Amid the array of lithe, softly curved bodies, however, an incongruous skeleton stands proudly in the middle of the thoroughfare as it cuts through the city, the light of the moon casting a long shadow onto the paved walkway. During the Second World War, Delvaux began to make regular visits to the Natural History Museum in Brussels, where in ‘an extraordinary room’ there were many skeletons ‘of all the animals in Creation in rows, as if in battle formation’ (P. Delvaux, quoted in Paul Delvaux 1897-1994, exh. cat., Royal Museum of Fine Arts Belgium, Brussels, 1997, p. 26). There Delvaux began to make serious studies of skeletons and this structural frame of the human being began to appear in his work as if alive, sitting in chairs, conversing in offices and later enacting scenes from the Passion. For Delvaux, skeletons were dynamic actors in his mise-en-scènes, not just inanimate still-life elements, representing a vivid impression of the framework beneath the smooth, porcelain bodies of his nude figures. ‘For me,’ he explained, ‘the skeleton is a very, very strong expression of the human being for under the skin there are bones. The skeleton is the image of the human being. It is alive, and I wished to create expressive scenes with skeletons’ (ibid.). In La Ville lunaire, the skeleton ambles nonchalantly through the cityscape, its back to the viewer as it makes its way towards the distant horizon, one hand lifted in a gesture that mirrors the draped female figure in the foreground of the work, establishing an intriguing pictorial symmetry.
La Ville lunaire was included in Delvaux’s first major retrospective, which took place in the winter of 1944 at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, just a few months after the city had been liberated by Allied forces. Organised by the artist, writer and collector, E.L.T. Mesens, this seminal exhibition launched Delvaux to national prominence, cementing his reputation as a leading member of the Belgian Surrealist movement. The painting was also among the selection of works included in the Biennale di Venezia in 1954 where, in celebration of the thirtieth anniversary of the founding of the Surrealist movement, the organizers had suggested a unifying theme across the show which focused on the concept of the fantastic in art. The event proved to be a watershed moment for Surrealism, consecrating its position in the history of modern art, alongside the likes of Fauvism, Cubism and Expressionism, though Delvaux’s work, which was on show in the large-scale exhibition at the Belgian Pavilion, was heavily criticized by conservative critics for its extensive use of nudity.
La Ville lunaire was loaned to the Biennale by Alex Salkin, a Belgian lawyer and art collector who was an important advocate for Belgian art following his emigration to the United States in 1940. In 1948 Salkin published an informational pamphlet, Modern Painting in Belgium, in which he singled Delvaux out as ‘a great visionary’ and noted: ‘The settings [of his pictures] are astonishing for their virtuosity of detail, as well as for the balance of composition. From the first glimpse, one is captivated by the majesty and grandeur of his work… He paints the settings of his dreams and the people by whom he is haunted… He reconstructs all this visible world, as though to give it freedom, within the topsy-turvy yet always poetically logical order of his vision’ (Modern Painting in Belgium, New York, 1948, pp. 62-63).