Vertigo

Léon Spilliaert is one of those relatively unknown painters who leave you breathless when you see your first piece. Luckily, you can see many of his works at a great exhibition in the Royal Academy in London, opening 23 February 2020.  : )

Spilliaert’s work is characterized by dramatic perspectives and a quiet luminescence. He is best known for a sequence of enigmatic self-portraits and for his atmospheric night-time scenes of Ostend. His visual explorations of the self and potent images of solitude align him with European modernists such as Edvard Munch and Vilhelm Hammershøi. Most of Spilliaert's works are marked by an oppressive alien and elegiac atmosphere. Solitude, mystery, and hallucination—these are what you feel while looking at his works. 

Vertigo has a special artistic value. Spilliaert paints a lonely and distraught person who is at the mercy of a strong wind in an unstable environment. He adds the feeling of dizzying power by using hard color contrasts, the spiral construction of the stairs, and the inducing power of the black abyss.

See you tomorrow!

P.S. Here's All by Myself, a lonely story of solitude in painting.  ;-)