Paul Delvaux

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Belgian Surrealism
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Belgian Surrealism

The manifesto of André Breton in 1924 signalled the beginning of surrealism, a movement in which the subconscious is emphasised. Especially in France surrealism was an important movement, yet Belgium had its own practitioners, e.g. the well-known René Magritte. He focused on the deconstruction of image and language. His work ‘Ceci n’est pas une pipe’ is very well known. This emphasis on realism, instead of on the subconscious, distinguishes the Belgian surrealism from the French variant.
Ecce Homo
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Ecce Homo

This painting illustrates Delvaux’s fascination with skeletons. It is called Ecce Homo (1949) and is inspired by Rogier van der Weyden’s ‘Descent from the Cross’ (1435, Prado Madrid). The figures depicted as skeletons are just as curious as the title Ecce Homo (Behold the man), the words of Pontius Pilate when he showed Christ with the Crown of Thorns to the people. The use of skeletons gives this old theme an alienating effect, while the background, with the train station, makes this painting a modern descent of the cross. Ecce Homo belongs to the former collection of the Dutch banker Dirk Scheringa. In 2009 his bank went into bankruptcy and therefore the future of this painting and the rest of his collection is uncertain.
Balthus
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Balthus

Delvaux was a great admirer of his contemporary, the painter Balthus (1908-2001). Both have a similar realistic style and both place their figures in strange situations. Although the figures of Balthus are not always nude - as are those of Delvaux - there is always an erotic atmosphere. A well-known painting of Balthus illustrating this is La Rue (1933), in which the figures are shown crossing the street in isolation, except on the left, where a man is aggressively abusing a woman. YouTube has fragments of a film about Balthus.

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Paul Delvaux

Skeletons, nudes and train stations are important motives in the oeuvre of Paul Delvaux (1897-1994). Because of the estranged representations in a realistic style, Delvaux is branded a Belgian surrealist, a label that makes him feel uncomfortable though. In 1973 Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen organized a retrospective of the work of Paul Delvaux. This film is a registration of this exhibition in the so-called newsreel.