Le Silence, Lucien Lévy-Dhurmer
Le Silence, a picture that Levy-Dhurmer kept throughout his life, is without doubt one of his most fascinating works. It has the suggestive power of an icon, an image that is all the more compelling for being presented as an enigma: fixed in a hieratic pose, with eyes hidden in shadow, the figure eludes all explanation. Solid and immobile, it keeps what we imagine to be the secret of its mourning to itself. The long, falling folds, enhanced by the vertical format, cannot but evoke both physical gravity (from which it is impossible to escape) and moral gravity.
