Paul Delvaux

It is difficult for me to understand why Delvaux was considered so deeply shocking in his native Belgium. His nudes, after all, are never creatures of reality; they live in their strange dream world-remote, mysterious, and subtly threatening. Perhaps it is this menacing presence in his paintings that was considered to be so alarming by compatriots. My favorite, "A Siren in Full Moonlight," is a magical work that seems to me to be completely without sexual provocation. It is not a woman as a "temptress," but a woman as alien. Delvaux depicts her enclosed in the secret world of her unknowable mysteries. This woman of fish is living on the land of man; she is distanced by Delvaux, seemingly with a mixture of fascination and fear.