One of my favourite Surrealist paintings is Max Ernst’s ‘Europe after the Rain’ which portrays Europe after World War Two.
Halcyon Days portrays Europe before the rain. It is set in the mountain somewhere in the Appenines (Italy) in the inter-war years.
We see a 1920’s Armstrong Siddeley Limousine cruising gently past some local people taking the air. Above them a Wagons Lit Express thunders across a viaduct into a tunnel under a castle. This calm and picturesque scene symbolises what was so tragically destroyed as a result of the Second World War.
