Bodies climb the spokes of a turning wheel toward the sky

A dark wheel turns at the centre of the canvas, and around its rim a torrent of pale nude bodies climbs, falls and strains — some reaching the top, some tumbling back through the red glow at the base, all of them caught in the same rotation. Behind, a cold teal sky is broken by pale discs like moons, and a great dark monolith rises along the right edge. Delville painted La Roue du Monde in 1940, at seventy-three, with Europe again at war: the wheel of Fortune, of karma, of history, rendered as a single unstoppable machine of flesh.

Jean Delville (1867–1953) was the most uncompromising of the Belgian Symbolists — a painter, poet and Theosophist who believed art should be an initiation rather than a decoration. He founded the Salon d'Art Idéaliste in Brussels, taught at the academies of Glasgow and Brussels, and pursued a vision of spiritual evolution through the human figure that has no real parallel in European painting.

Printed as a museum-grade giclée on Hahnemühle fine art paper using 12-ink archival pigment printing. Available handframed in FSC-certified wood with optional float glass, or unframed. Ships worldwide with free delivery to 30+ countries.