Surrealism and the Art of Remedios Varo
Varo wasn’t looking to depict her life in her art but to transcend it into surrealist scenery.
Remedios Varo was a Spanish painter known for her surrealist artworks; she was based in Spain and later France but moved to Mexico due to the Spanish Civil War and tensions in France due to Nazi occupation. She spent the last thirteen years of her life in Mexico and passed away at the age of 54, during the zenith of her career.
You might be wondering, why is Pratham Wadgaonkar writing about a Mexican painter whom most likely no one has heard of? Where are the 2024 General Election articles?
Well, I wondered about it too, for a while. Not too long ago, I stumbled upon a piece painted by Varo, and I kept looking at it for quite a while. I could not possibly grasp what the art was about, but then I found out, of course not! It’s weird and probably an abstract artwork, not that I know a single thing about art or art history. I looked up the art on Google Image Search and found out it was a surrealist piece painted by Remedios Varo in 1958. It is called Celestial Pabulum or Star Maker (Spanish: Papilla Estelar).
As I have mentioned, I know not a thing about art or artists, nor paint or painters. I was just perplexed by what I was looking at. I briefly read about Varo, her life and art, and how the former influenced the latter. Then, it started making some sense. I went on a journey learning about feminist interpretations of Varo’s art and how she constructed narratives in her art from the experiences of her life, which included fleeing from war, not being welcomed in a foreign nation, and finding her place as a female European artist in Mexico. Below is one of the interpretations of the Celestial Pabulum.
As she feeds her moon-child, she is trapped in a tower with no visible escape. But, through doing her maternal duty she is connected to the universe and the cosmos in a way that only she can be. It’s a very powerful painting and one that shows the complex relationship to women’s roles that Varo was exploring. — Holly Harmon, Art Professional
Another interpretation of the artwork is related to isolation. The claustrophobic space and the caged moon create a sense of entrapment and isolation, a sense which Varo experienced during her time in Mexico when European artists were not particularly welcomed in Mexican art circles. Feeding the stardust to the caged moon might give us a hint of transforming hope into opportunity.
This painting reminds the viewer of the hope that comes out of trials and that light comes from within and that it is the viewers job to harness it.
The same protagonist appears in another work by Varo, titled Disturbing Presence, painted in 1959. Some noticeable recurring elements in these mentioned paintings are the furniture, the sedentary posture, and a bit of mysticism and magic. This piece features a creature’s face creeping up on the protagonist with its tongue out, seemingly to lick her, while the protagonist seems occupied with peeling nerve-like threads of the table, which seem to be growing in the labyrinthian passages around her. I have also read theories that Varo usually portrays herself in her paintings, sitting at a desk engaged in magical work, dissolving into the environment that completely surrounds her.
While trying to find interpretations of this piece (I found none), I realized that Varo wasn't looking to depict her life in her art but to transcend it into a surrealist scenery, where the idea and notions of objectivity and meaning don't exist as they do in our world. Surrealism does mean ‘beyond reality’ so whatever possible meaning or interpretation might come out of those artworks does not necessarily materialize into meaning.
Varo has quite the catalogue, comprising over 500 paintings. To talk about only two of them is not ideal.
This is another artwork featuring furniture and the sitting position, only this time without our previously featured protagonist. My interpretation of this artwork is about the idea of interpretation itself. We see the half-owl, half-human being painting the birds into existence. A creation of their own, inspired by light from outside. However, after their creation, they are free and are ready to wander outside of the space in which this painting takes place. This allegory can be referred to Varo’s artwork, the birds being her paintings, which are free of any meaning and not limited to a single interpretation. The owl-human mutant deity being Varo, and the triangular magnifying glass and the double-chambered container being Varo’s lenses of interpretation from the outside world indicate how she draws inspiration from the world around her, however, confined in her own space. I also learned that birds have been the representation of the idea of freedom in art for a long time. In Varo’s enchanted world of mysticism, everything seems to tell a story.
It came to me why I found her art so intriguing and worth looking at, trying to dive into her imagination; it is certainly because of my predilection for unearthly and dreamlike scenarios, be it in film, literature, or video games. The anxiety of space, the dull yet aesthetically pleasing colours, and the strange atmosphere within the frame, Varo captures all of these qualities from her own imagination and instinct.
The unsettling yet beautiful qualities of Remedios Varo’s scenery and protagonists in her paintings made me want to write about her expression, and thanks to that, I now find myself admiring other artists, particularly Hieronymus Bosch. It is a delight to understand and appreciate something new. I look forward to learning more about art and writing more about artistic expression.
