WEBORGERS-

The Belgian Painters (4)

PAUL DELVAUX

1897-1994

Paul Delvaux is the other great Belgian surrealist painter; with René Magritte they represent the best examples of poetic surrealism in Modern painting.
Delvaux, well known for his decors and ladies having a classical touch succeeds in creating dream-like scenes and unreal atmospheres.
(check here for a typical painting)

A CATALOG OF OBSESSIONS...
Very often, Delvaux's paintings are of large dimensions, adding this way to the kind of hieratic majesty he can give to certain compositions. Frequently, the night is a central character of the scene adding to the surreal of the whole set-up.
Check for one of his wide paintings with this link (56KB). In the same site, you will find also a brief introduction to the work of this famous painter.

Besides women that appear as central figures in a lot of his works, Delvaux uses a lot of references of his own: steam locomotives (hanging in the sky or arriving from nowhere), pseudo-greek classic temples and agoras, 19th century dressed ladies with large hats, skeletons in action... are among the most frequent. To be added: his famous obsession for the tiny train station of Watermal-Boistfort, a forested and green Brussels' suburb.
But Delvaux's obsessions are always linked to some kind of magic and his poetry unifies the contradicting elements of his paintings.

POETIC SURREALISM...
It is evident that a lot of Delvaux's paintings are surrealistic.(check this painting: L'Homme de La Rue- The Man from the Street- with an obvious homage to Magritte).
However the painter himself did not always agree with this simplistic classification. As a matter of fact most of the originality of Delvaux is a sort of fantasy world where dreams, obsessions and poetry are mixed in a successful rendition.
The images he uses are always highly realistic (as in the surrealism painting) but in compositions where onirism, eroticism and poetry are Delvaux's mark.
Maybe a way to qualify this could be: Fantastic Realism (Réalisme Fantastique in French), recycling a label for an art genre that was coined during the sixties.

PAUL DELVAUX: WORLD FAMOUS BELGIAN PAINTER...
As for Magritte, Delvaux spent most of his long life in his country: Belgium, even when enjoying a worldwide success. He was many times officially commissioned to decorate walls with his frescoes in casinos and other public places in Belgium. In Brussels alone you will find his work on the walls of the downtown Palais des Congres (Congress Palace) and... in a station of the Brussels' underground system!
Even if some of his work was criticized due to some subjects being judged shocking in the forties
[Pygmalion- thumbnail size]

and fifties, Delvaux was widely acclaimed and recognized as a master of the Modern painting.
One of his masterpieces: Pygmalion- is in the Brussels' Museum for Modern Art (look at a copy of it in the Webmuseum). There is a fine collection of his work in Ostende as well and major pieces in several museums all over Belgium.
_Pygmalion

PIERRE ALECHINSKY

(contemporary)

[Painting by Alechinsky]
Bleu Processionaire - Walking Blue

Pierre Alechinsky is well known for his treatment of colors, graphic humor and versatility. Besides painting, he illustrates a large number of art edition of selected books. He also excels in calligraphy and printing of texts.
He is one of the leading artists in the Europe of post WWII.

THE COBRA GROUP...
Cobra is the art movement established in 1948 in reaction against officialization. The name of the Group came by the name of the cities where the artists where established: COpenhagen, BRussels, Amsterdam.
Amongst the founders were Alechinsky and the Belgian poet Christian Dotremont, the Danish Jorn, the Dutch Appel.

This Group was founded to research all forms of spontaneous art, recognizing the same creation process regardless of its origin. Popular arts, primitive arts, children drawings, instinctive art were all admitted as valid art expressions and taken as possible sources for modern development.This approach promoted by the artists of the Groupe Cobra had a big influence on the European arts of the second half of the century.

AN ALECHINSKY SWATCH...
One of the characteristics of Alechinsky as an artist is his versatility in media he uses and in techniques. He devoted his talent to a lot of essays of new typography and publication of art books, he was interested very early by the Japanese calligraphy and all along his career eclecticism is his mark.
No wonder that Swatch, the famous popular watch from Switzerland, selected Alechinsky as one of the first artists to decorate the face of the watch: see the result here.
To be noted that amongst the first 6 artists selected to decorate the special series of Swatch Art since the beginning of the series in 1986, 3 are Belgian artists! Besides Alechinsky, there is: JM Folon and Pol Bury.

AN INTERNATIONAL ACCLAIM...
Pierre Alechinsky is one of the present Belgian painters with international recognition. His works are in high demand: galleries and exhibitions all around the world are constantly displaying them.

To more painters >>>>

To Front page

E.Borgers
freeweb@rocketmail.com