Robert Detheux (1932-2010) - Le Chat des brumes - 2005

The Cat of the Mists
Dimensions: 54 cm x 42 cm
Condition: Good
Signature and date: Signed and dated 2005
Unframed: Sold unframed
Shipment: Will be sent flat, very well protected.

Robert Detheux – Series The Cats (2005)

Created in 2005, this work titled The Fog Cat belongs to the series The Cats by Robert Detheux, an essential figure of Belgian surrealism. Through its ethereal drawing and the depth of its gaze, it illustrates the artist's ability to evoke presence from silence and diffuse light.

Description of the work

In The Fog Cat, Detheux sketches a cat with an intense gaze, whose head seems to emerge from a veil of fog. The drawing, executed in pencil and highlighted with white chalk, plays on transparency and the superposition of lines.

The contours are deliberately blurred, almost erased, while the eyes, with a disturbing precision, become the focal point of the composition. The whole evokes an apparition, a form that is barely revealed, suspended between materiality and disappearance.

The texture of the paper, slightly marbled, enhances this impression of floating and mystery. The cat, here, is no longer just a subject: it becomes a metaphor for the soul, a figure of the in-between worlds.

Artistic context

Through the series Les Chats, Robert Detheux explores the symbolism of the cat as a liminal being, guardian of dreams and secrets. The artist aims to translate the spiritual essence of the animal, its ability to embody silence, grace, and intuition.

This work is part of the continuity of Belgian poetic surrealism, where suggestion and metamorphosis take precedence over representation. It shares with Leonor Fini's universe the same fascination with feline presence, both sensual, enigmatic, and inward.

Comparison and influences

The sobriety of the line and the tension between clarity and erasure evoke the poetic rigor of Balthus. Like him, Detheux favors the slow gaze and the depth of silence. Both express emotion not through gesture, but through restraint, nuance, and light.

Biography

Born in Brussels in 1932, Robert Detheux is a prominent figure in Belgian surrealism. His work, imbued with lyricism and discretion, explores the realms of the unconscious and the beauty of the unspoken. An artist of chiaroscuro and silence, he masterfully created a universe of rare coherence, where each stroke becomes a breath and each gaze a revelation. He passed away in 2010, leaving behind a poetic and timeless body of work.

Provenance

The artist's family collection

A unique and original work by Robert Detheux, Le Chat des brumes stands as a visual meditation on fleetingness, light, and mystery. Through its delicacy, symbolic depth, and aesthetic kinship with Leonor Fini, this piece will appeal to collectors sensitive to the poetry of silence and the beauty of the invisible.