Grise City 1943

Paul Delvaux's 'Grise City' emerges as a dream, maybe even a nightmare, rendered in oil on canvas. I imagine Delvaux, standing before this canvas, brush in hand, conjuring up a world both familiar and unsettling. The colours are muted, almost like faded memories. The painting surface is smooth, each stroke deliberate, but the overall effect is one of eerie stillness. I can sense Delvaux's struggle to reconcile the rational with the irrational. The nude figures, with their blank stares, seem trapped in a perpetual state of unease. Perhaps Delvaux was thinking about Giorgio de Chirico’s cityscapes, but wanted to fill them with yearning and human mystery. Painting, after all, isn't about answers, but about asking the right questions, stirring up conversations across time. We painters borrow, steal, and build upon each other's visions, and that’s just how it goes!