Nocturnes 1931

Curator: Something about the lighting makes me shiver. Are they expecting me to know why they are naked and holding out their hands? I want to know more... Editor: Indeed! This painting, aptly named "Nocturnes," was created in 1931 by Paul Delvaux. He deployed oil paint on canvas to summon a disquieting vision, characteristic of his surrealist style. Curator: Disquieting is the right word. It’s like being caught in someone else’s dream, a dream where everyone’s forgotten why they're standing there. And those big eyes, looking, but never seeing… spooky. It is quite an original take on the nude. I am struck at how different the figures are - their expressions and positions are so detached. I want to untangle those relations somehow. Editor: Well, from a structural standpoint, consider the pronounced geometric composition. The severe horizontals of the terrace sharply contrast the softer curves of the figures. There's also the interplay of light and shadow. Look at how Delvaux sculpts form through chiaroscuro, accentuating the eeriness with his shadows. These contrasts and oppositions aren't merely aesthetic; they activate a visual vocabulary rooted in classicism with a very unsettling, modernist anxiety. The composition places the nude figures in juxtaposition against the architecture. The figures become like another type of architectural mass in this dream landscape. Curator: You’ve got a point. Classicism made all wrong, unsettling. And what’s up with those pebbles at the bottom? Those figures in the back might hold some kind of key... It feels deeply personal to me, though maybe not deliberately so. The lack of interaction really gets to me: Are they trying to show how isolated we all are even among each other? Are the stones the offering? I wish I knew. I guess it's just an open landscape, then. Editor: That sense of unresolved tension, I agree, makes the piece what it is. Perhaps the beauty of Delvaux's 'Nocturnes' resides precisely in its resistance to neat explanation, letting each viewer piece together their interpretation within its calculated formalism. Curator: It is as if Delvaux created something so raw, yet deeply classical; something out of nightmares which are at the same time familiar. It’s that tension between the known and the utterly strange that captivates me. Editor: Leaving us, perhaps, with more questions than answers about the silent drama enacted here.