The Garden 1971

Paul Delvaux made this painting, The Garden, with oil on canvas. I’m just imagining Delvaux at work here, carefully building up the muted tones of this uncanny garden scene, somewhere between day and night. I imagine he would have been layering the paint so carefully to create that dreamlike effect of smooth skin against the textures of the leaves and stone. I wonder what he was thinking, surrounding these figures with that strange architectural structure and the distant train. There’s an air of stillness, but also a hint of something about to happen. The way he captured the light, reflecting it in unexpected ways – like on the pale skin of the figures. It makes the whole painting glow. His work reminds me of other Surrealist painters who were exploring the unconscious and the bizarre. Painting is so much about being in conversation across time. Each of us trying to tap into something ineffable, and pass it on, always open to new interpretations, new dreams.