Exploring Paul Delvaux’s Dreamlike Style in AI Image Generation

Returning with Delvaux: A Surrealist Tribute

Hello again—it's been a little while! I ended up taking a three-week break while preparing for my current exhibition in Daegu and getting ready to move my studio. Next time, I’ll try to plan ahead so I don’t have to pause for quite so long.

In today’s letter, I’d like to introduce another painter I deeply admire, along with some ways I’ve explored integrating his style into AI-generated imagery. This time, our featured artist is Paul Delvaux.

Although I don’t use Delvaux’s name in prompts for works shown in official exhibitions—he has not yet passed the 70-year mark required to avoid copyright concerns—I simply can’t resist honoring his influence in other places, like this newsletter or on Instagram. For me, these images are a quiet homage to Delvaux and the world he created.

Paul Delvaux (1897–1994) was a Belgian surrealist painter known for his dreamlike, mysterious compositions. While he was never formally part of the Surrealist movement, he is widely regarded—alongside René Magritte—as one of the central figures of Belgian Surrealism.

Delvaux’s work often inhabits a quiet, theatrical world suspended in time: ancient ruins, moonlit landscapes, nude female figures, all arranged in a way that evokes both peace and unease. His paintings dwell in the space between consciousness and dream, with pieces like The Railway Station at Night and Street of Memories drawing the viewer into moments where time and narrative seem to pause. With poetic imagination and meticulous detail, Delvaux’s art explores the delicate line between reality and the subconscious.

The images I created here are inspired by that same atmosphere. Some were made without style codes, and others incorporate publicly shared MidJourney codes that seemed to align well with Delvaux’s mood. Although my prompts only referenced blue as a color, the resulting images—thanks to the style code—include soft accent colors and textured nuances that echo his visual language.

As I’ve shared before, the simplest way to generate images in the style of an artist is to include their name in your prompt, such as “by [artist name]” or “in the style of [artist name].” However, always be mindful of copyright—it's best to avoid referencing artists who are still living or have passed away within the last 70 years.

Here are a few tips to go deeper with your prompts:

1. Cross-disciplinary use: Try applying an artist’s style to a different medium. For instance, using a painter’s aesthetic for fashion photography, or a sculptor’s tone for branding or logos. This can result in creative outcomes and reduce the risk of imitation.

2. Combining with style codes: Platforms like MidJourney offer public style codes (such as --sref or --p). Thoughtfully combining these with an artist’s style can produce visually compelling results. (I’ll share more about combining --p with artist references in a future letter.)

3. Use of Niji: This time, I used Niji 6, a model of MidJourney designed for anime-style images. I’m not usually drawn to the typical “cute” Niji aesthetic, but I hoped that Delvaux’s atmospheric sensibility might counterbalance that tendency—and I was quite pleased with the outcome.

Though all of the images carry a Delvaux-like spirit, each has its own flavor depending on the tools and settings used—MidJourney alone, Niji, or a combination of style codes. Exploring these variations is one of the joys of working with AI-generated imagery.

I hope this letter sparked your interest in Paul Delvaux and perhaps inspired you to look more closely at the painters and movements you love. And I hope the process I’ve shared is helpful as you experiment with AI image creation yourself.

In today’s rapidly evolving landscape—ChatGPT, Google’s Whisk, Sora, and other tools are now making image synthesis remarkably easy—I plan to share more practical tips in upcoming newsletters on how to apply these technologies to your own brand or product visuals.

For now, wish me luck with my studio move! It’s not the most dreadful task in the world, but it’s certainly tiring. Hopefully, I’ll be settled soon—and back to creating.