La Fin du voyage (1968) is a key work by Paul Delvaux, painted at the height of his artistic maturity. The monumental canvas synthesizes several of his signature motifs, including trams, female nudes, and classical architecture—elements rooted in childhood memories and transformed into poetic symbols. Delvaux sought not to depict reality but to evoke emotion and nostalgia, stating that his images of trains expressed “a feeling” rather than a literal departure. Similarly, the female figures in his paintings exist solely within the poetic logic of the composition, often recalling the posture of Old Master figures such as Cranach’s Venus.

Although Delvaux distanced himself from Freudian psychoanalysis and refused to align fully with Surrealism, his practice was deeply influenced by its central figures. Encounters with the works of Magritte and de Chirico liberated him from rationalist painting, allowing him to embrace dreamlike, uncanny scenarios. However, unlike many Surrealists, Delvaux’s approach was more understated—imbuing calm, orderly scenes with subtle dislocations of time and space, as seen in the interplay of night and day within a single composition.

La Fin du voyage embodies what has been called “The Delvaux World”—a unique, inimitable universe devoted to poetry and reverie. The painting’s serene strangeness, classical allusions, and dreamlike atmosphere exemplify his lifelong quest to create a parallel reality. As Claude Lévi-Strauss noted, Delvaux offers viewers an escape into a world “truer and more desirable” than the one they inhabit.