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The streets of the city, the surrealists believed, offered
innumerable possibilities for erotic encounters. Many of their
writings describe chance meetings, in which a fated couple
are guided towards each other without knowing it, or even
being aware of the other's existence. In the painting Dawn
Over the City (1940), the Belgian artist Paul Delvaux
portrays himself wandering the streets of a city haunted by
enticing, naked women. In René Magritte's The Lovers
(1928), a couple find each other and embrace, despite the
white cloths that cover their heads.
From the 1930s the idea of desire as a mysterious guiding
force was also explored in surrealist objects. These bizarre
constructions sometimes incorporated found objects picked
up at flea markets, discoveries that the surrealists interpreted
as another type of fortuitous encounter. The completed works
were seen as symbolic expressions of hidden or unarticulated
desires.
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Paul Delvaux, Dawn over the City, 1940, Artesia
Bank, Belgium © Foundation P Delvaux - St Ldesbald, Belgium/DACS,
London 2001
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