The last episode of our series introduces Toyen (born Marie Čermínová) who was active in Prague and Paris. She is an important representative of European Surrealism which put emphasis on the liberation of the mind and the rendering of the subconscious, memories, ideas, and dreams. The painting Summer captures the essence of a beautiful sunny day where obscure, merely suggested shapes float freely in weightless space. The painting Horror, on the other hand, depicts irrational terror in a very realistic way: the scene resounds with tension, anxiety, and danger foreshadowing the fear of the imminent World War II.
In 1925, Toyen left for Paris together with her companion Jindřich Štyrský. In Paris, they declared their own art movement – Artificialism. It could be characterized as a trend verging on Surrealism and Abstraction. The artists tried to capture the traces of their memories – ideas linked either to reality or to dreams – and especially their essence left behind. This process gave birth to new worlds – to unknown and unfamiliar landscapes. Such images evoke associations and stir up the viewer’s fantasy. At the beginning of the 1930s, the ideas of Surrealism began emerging in Toyen’s work.
Toyen, Summer
1931
Height 73 cm x width 100 cm
Oil on canvas
The painting Summer from 1931 still reflects the concept of a landscape based on Artificialism. The left part of the canvas is dominated by ochre colours. There is an indeterminate object, suggestive of a mineral. There are also spherical shapes – perhaps eyes observing us. A crevice and, on the right, in the blue part, there are more unspecified objects, perhaps shells or rocks...
It is up to the viewer to interpret these shapes. The painting shows clusters of sensed and unknown objects floating freely in weightless space. It may be a memory of the sea and sunlit sand. But what we can say for sure is that this painting has a very positive effect, evoking the connotation of a beautiful summer day.
Toyen, Horror
1937
Height 77 cm x width 74 cm
Oil on canvas
The painting Horror from 1937 realistically depicts the irrational. The artist gives a concrete shape to her inner feelings. The scene is dominated by this indeterminate object. It is neither an object, nor a being – it is a kind of phantom. Its concrete shape and, at the same time, its unidentifiable nature have a very unsettling effect on us. At the end of the pole there is a bleeding object covered with feathers and casting a shadow. The background is rendered in an abstract manner suggesting a wooden structure that evokes a high fence.
Two pairs of hands, perhaps children’s, plus one odd hand, hang onto it. The painting is crowned with a narrow strip of blue sky. The scene resonates with tension, a disturbing mixture of feelings of voyeurism, cruelty, and pleasure. Anxiety and danger are typical themes for Toyen’s work in the second half of the 1930s. The artist thus responded to the fears of the imminent World War II. Toyen spent the war years in Prague, hiding the poet and writer of Jewish origin, Jindřich Heisler in her small apartment. If this had been revealed it would have meant immediate death for both of them. After the war Toyen decided to travel to Paris where she spent the rest of her life.
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