Tiger in a Tropical Storm (Surprised!) 1891 The Sleeping Gypsy 1897 Oil on canvas 51″ x 6’7″ The Museum of Modern Art, New York The Snake Charmer 1907 Oil on canvas 169 x 189.5 cm Musee d’Orsay, Paris < From the National Gallery of Art: Tiger in a Tropical Storm (Surprised!) was Rousseau’s first jungle...
The Dream 1910 Oil on canvas 6′ 8 1/2″ x 9′ 9 1/2″ The Museum of Modern Art, New York “It is often said that my heart is too open for my own good.” Henri Rousseau Rousseau wrote this about the painting: “The woman in question is dreaming she has been transported into the…
Wheatfield with Crows July 1890 Oil on canvas 19.9 in × 40.6 in Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam Wheat Fields after the Rain (The Plain of Auvers) July 1890 Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh The Fields July 1890 The theme of these last several posts is that the Unconscious is…
The Watermelons Oil on Canvas, 1957 Museum Dolores Olmedo Patiño It is not, of course, a coincidence that Diego Rivera painted watermelons, since he was passionately connected to Frida Kahlo. Mr. Rivera died of heart failure — the used up watermelon in the front of the painting seems quite appropriately symbolic. Among other things, heart…
The Pain of Frida Kahlo Frida Kahlo was in pain much of her life — from polio when she was young, from a bad trolley accident when she was in her adolescence. (See Wikipedia article below). Similar to her contemporary Remedios Varo, she died early in her artistic career, at the age of forty-seven. The…
Still Life Reviving, 1963 Remedios Varos died of a heart attack at the age of 54. This is her only painting that I am aware of without people in it; it clearly is a painting foreshadowing her death (at least in this world). For me, Art –at its best — is a reflection of…
What we are to our inward vision, and what man appears to be… can only be expressed by way of myth. Myth is more individual and expresses life more precisely than does science. Memories, Dreams, Reflections; Prologue (1961) El Malabarista, 1956 from Defining irrealism: scientific development and allegorical possibility Dean Swinford, University…
Phenomenon of Weightlessness 1963 FromThe Science Of Remedios Varo Excerpts from The New York Times-Science Forum A man, presumably a scientist, stands in a room with a number of orreries on shelves. One orrery, of the Earth and Moon, has broken free of its base and floats in the air. In addition, the room is…
Woman Leaving the Psychoanalyst, 1960 Oil on canvas, 27-7/8 x 16-1/8 in. Private collection. From Remedios Varo: Unexpected Journeys; Janet Kaplan Whether Varo herself ever sought psychiatric help is undocumented. Her letters to unknown psychiatrists, filled with descriptions of ridiculous imaginary crisis, and pleas for help, were surely written in jest, as was her proposal…