Skeletons in an office 1944

Paul Delvaux painted these skeletons in an office with oil on canvas. Look at them all gathered! It's like they're having a board meeting or maybe a very strange tea party. I wonder what Delvaux was thinking? What's with the decor, so bourgeois? It's so unexpected. The light is diffused, melancholic. Everything seems still, suspended. The skeletons themselves are so meticulously rendered. The bones and joints are all carefully described. The painting's not particularly thick, it’s smooth, like Delvaux wanted to hide the artifice and let the scene speak for itself. I love the skeleton in the armchair. He has a particularly languid pose, as if he's pondering the mysteries of the universe. It makes me think about how painting, throughout art history, is a conversation. Like Delvaux is speaking to us, to other painters, and to his own ideas about mortality, absurdity, and what it means to be human. I can relate to this. We are all always already skeletons.