Barbara Emerson/Lannoo - Delvaux - 1985

Antiquity as inspiration can be revealed in the works of Paul Delvaux as from the beginning of the 1930s and gets more important during World War II, for example with the theme of the tragic city. His interest in antiquity is characterized by antique sculpture and leads the artist to the elaboration of a theatralic human figure. These theatralic and dramatic representations put on mythical figures like Pygmalion, Venus or Penelope as well as sirens, ephebes and hamadryads. Delvaux also evokes a certain secret sacrality of so-called ''places of memory'' as temples and antique places like the Acropolis, Olympia or Pompeii. Places which Delvaux visited on the occasion of his two journeys to Italy in 1937 and 1939 as well as on his travel through Greece in 1956. Finally, we should not forget a most important aspect of Delvaux's reception of antiquity: that of melancholic withdrawal. The exhibition will show around sixty works, paintings and drawings, declined around the above mentioned themes.‎