Artwork Description

Title: Mort à Venise
Artist: Christian Silvain
Date: n.d.
Medium: Print
Dimensions: 23.6 x 19.7 in (60 x 50 cm)

Artwork Identification
This hauntingly surreal print by Belgian artist Christian Silvain, Title:d Mort à Venise (Death in Venice), fuses a photorealistic urban Venetian landscape with the stark and expressive visage of a man layered over the scene in vertical streaks. The visual tension between place and psyche forms a psychological topography characteristic of Silvain’s practice, steeped in memory, solitude, and symbolic fragmentation.

Artistic Style and Influences
Silvain’s early influences include Paul Delvaux, whose surrealist aesthetic left a profound impact on the young artist. Mort à Venise aligns with Silvain’s mid-period works, wherein photorealistic architecture and haunting portraiture coalesce with a theatrical sense of unease. The work’s composition and technique reflect both surrealism and proto-Street Art influences that dominated his 1980s “façade” period.

Historical Context
Emerging in postwar Belgium, Silvain's art channels personal trauma and broader existential questions through allegorical and emotionally charged imagery. This particular work, while undated, speaks to a time of introspection and increasing psychological density in his oeuvre—an evocation of death, decay, and inner imprisonment echoing the melancholic themes found in Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice.

Provenance
Provenance documentation can be provided upon contact.

Condition and Conservation
The artwork is in very good condition with no visible damage or discoloration. It has been well-preserved and shows strong tonal contrasts and clarity in print quality.

Artistic Significance
Christian Silvain remains a singular voice in contemporary Belgian art, unbound by schools or collectives. Mort à Venise embodies his vision of layered emotional realities and visual dissonance. The work’s ghostly architecture and spectral face speak to the universal themes of loss and identity—offering a poetic yet unsettling meditation on mortality and self-fracture.