ykuang's posterous http://ykuang.posterous.com Most recent posts at ykuang's posterous posterous.com Sun, 16 Oct 2011 19:46:00 -0700 “The Awakening of the Forest” by Paul Delvaux http://ykuang.posterous.com/75784023 http://ykuang.posterous.com/75784023

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Paul Delvaux’s “The Awakening of the Forest” was painted in 1939, and it is oil on Canvas. Walking around the Surrealism Gallery of the Modern Wing, this is my favorite piece. The painting is very huge itself. The first time I saw the painting, it give me the feeling of old renaissance painting. By just observing the painting, there were several naked people walking around the forest. However, on the left side, there was a man dressed-up and he was gazing these naked people, especially a naked woman standing next to him. The naked women were walking by together as a group, their face were very peaceful, it seemed that they are very comfortable being nude. There was one thing interesting that I found in these women, two of them were hugging each other, the other women seemed very enjoyable. It seemed that there was some lesbian appealing shown in this work.

Besides these women, there were two men in this painting. One was sitting on a big leaf in the middle of the painting. The other one was standing on the right edge of the painting, and he was playing the music instrument. Both men were naked as well, the standing man showing his penis. The two male figures appearing in this painting was also interesting and made me think about. From my perspective, these two male figures were the most dominant figures in the painting along with the rest women.

The one dressed-up man, he seemed came from another world, a completely different world. He reached this world, he was curious about everyone; these naked people were the creature that he had never seen before. Therefore, he took up his glasses, and opened his big eyes gazing these naked people. However, the direction he gazed was right straight to the one standing in front of him. That is the naked guy. Maybe he was the only guy. One strange thing that I also found was that even these naked people were exposure to the dressed-up strangers, it is seemed nothing happening, they did not pay attention to the strangers at all and instead, and they continued doing their things. They were so peaceful and had very comfortable about being naked.

The other thing that I observed was that they all have very enormous huge eyes, eyeballs and eyebrows. These big eyes distinguished them from normal people. The interesting is that even the dressed-up man has big eyes too. This is the special personalities that Delvaux wanted to show in his painting-the surrealism feature. The old saying goes “eyes are the bridge to the heart.” These big eyes may be the part that Delvaux intend to discover their personalities.

I feel that this painting was inspired by the nature; everything in the painting was natural except those two outsiders. The forest seemed never ends. These naked people all have very delicate face, soft and white skin. They are just so peacefully involved in the nature. I guess Delvaux painted this work being inspired by his childhood fantasy. Something that his imagination, maybe his dream or some landscape that he saw in childhood that he remembered forever.

As a conclusion, from the Art Institute, it said “Delvaux was inspired by an episode from Verne’s journey to the Center of the Earth, in which Professor Otto Lidenbrock and his nephew Axel discover a prehistoric forest deep inside the earth.”

 

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