Train in Evening 1957

Paul Delvaux’s "Train in Evening" is a painting rendered in cool blues and blacks. It is almost as if it were exhaled onto the canvas, emerging tentatively through layers of glazes and thin washes. I imagine Delvaux, working in his studio late at night, probably listening to the low hum of the refrigerator, as he built up the eerie scene of a deserted train station bathed in moonlight. What was he thinking as he painted the girl in her white dress, standing alone on the platform? What kind of mood did he want to evoke? I love how the stark geometry of the railway tracks contrasts with the soft, hazy light of the moon. It reminds me of Giorgio de Chirico's dreamlike cityscapes, but with a melancholic twist. Like the Surrealists, Delvaux invites us to wander into a world where reality and imagination blur. There is nothing quite like the sensation of being both present and lost in thought, as if a painting were its own kind of transportation!