In Dreams

Civil war drove her out of her native Spain, where she had been educated by nuns. In France, she was indoctrinated into the church of Surrealism – whose bible, the Surrealist Manifesto, celebrates its centenary this year. But war drove Remedios Varo to leave once more, in 1941, and, like many surrealists, she took refuge in Mexico, where she befriended another great artist, Leonora Carrington. She was attracted to anarchy, but also to alchemy and esoteric subjects, the Middle Ages, and artists such as Hieronymus Bosch. Her works teem with dreamlike juxtapositions, with allegory and irony, and the artist herself often provided the key to deciphering them. In Rupture, a mysterious cloaked figure appears to escape from a haunted building; Le Jardin d’Amour could be an enchanting miniature from some lost troubadour codex, in which a princess is rescued by her charming prince, who is half bird. But it is not without humor: her Vegetarian Vampires suck the blood of fruits and vegetables – including a conspicuous watermelon.