Harmony by a Latin American Artist Remedios Varo

Harmony 1956 by Remedios Varo
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Introduction
Influential is a difficult term. It means storied chronology, reach, and effect. The majority of twentieth-century art history studies exclude Latin American artists. The same is true for well-known female artists. After a lengthy search for the most significant Latin American artists, I came across Remedios Varo, a renowned female American artist known for her work “Harmony.” This painting has served as a standard for illustrating the breadth and depth of Varo’s visual language since it was completed in 1956. This paper poetically depicts “animistic conviction in the power of things and the interconnection between plant, animal, human, and mechanical worlds.” Her fascination with natural phenomena stems from her belief that they encourage us to think about the world in terms of our instincts and spirituality. They reflect a part of our minds that we do not usually know about—the unconscious. According to Adam Sutherland, all humans and animals share the same ancestral DNA; this DNA is invisible and inaccessible to our conscious awareness; it serves as an adaptation mechanism for our psyches to the “human innate pattern and consistencies.” This order is undetectable and unavailable to our cognition, and it is this order that is the “primary factor of human behavior.” According to the author’s nature, amid the rigidity of civilization’s strict regulations, it sometimes refuses to be managed and supervised, flourishing at its rate and in its way. Willette reworked Sigmund Freud’s works for poets and visual artists, claiming that surrealism is an art theory based on a simplified view of Freud’s work. Surrealism spread Freud’s influence on Parisian painters in the 1920s. Remedios Varo’s surrealist painting was one of the most well-known in the movement’s history. Her paintings are inspired by various sources, including medieval history and Greek mythology, scientific research and alchemy, nature, music, and pagan traditions. Varos’ reality is full of fantastical elements, but she portrays this fantastical world objectively. It’s a scientific explanation for the supernatural.[Usaartnews.com. 2020. “The Mystical Scene by Spanish Surrealist Remedios Varo Set a World Record.” Usaartnews.Com. July 3, 2020. https://usaartnews.com/auctions/the-mystical-scene-by-spanish-surrealist-remedios-varo-set-a-world-record] [Camilla Sutherland. "Shifting realities: Migration and surreality in the work of Remedios Varo." Opticon1826 13 (2012): 23-32.] [Willette, Jeanne. 2011. “Surrealism and Freudian Theory.” Arthistoryunstuffed.Com. 2011. https://arthistoryunstuffed.com/surrealism-freudian-theory/.] [Sutherland, “Shifting realities,” 23-32]
Description of Harmony 1956
As Varo’s Harmony exhibits, both art and the integrity of the human mind rely on the unconscious. The painting’s most prominent feature, an androgynous alchemist-composer, immediately draws viewers’ attention. To skewer onto a panoramic music sheet, the writer searches a treasure chest for items such as leaves, flowers, shells, translucent geometrical solids, and scraps of paper with handwritten mathematical symbols. The expression on their face suggests that she is half-awake, as if in a trance. When the composer is half-asleep, a female figure from the wallpaper appears and assists him in arranging the musical items on the score.[“Usaartnews.com. 2020,” “Remedios Varo Set a World Record”] [“Usaartnews.com. 2020,” “Remedios Varo Set a World Record”]
Visually, Varo has used the concept of a supernatural human figure rising from the walls several times in his work to depict the awe of a shocking discovery or a breakthrough to widespread oppression. On the other hand, Harmony emerges from the wall with a calm and elegant appearance. With her eyes closed, she fills the void left by the conscious mind and improves the music, often a sign of Varo’s wholeness. When the unconscious and conscious minds work in tandem, the result is a mind that is whole and complete.
Varo depicted the various levels of the unconscious and their interaction with the conscious spheres in Harmony. The painting’s design leads the viewer from the front, where the composer and the person in the wall sit together, to the depths, where a similar figure works alone. The viewer is drawn to the foreground bookshelf, the bed, the windows, and the crimson abyss outside, before returning to the entryway, where a bird flies out, and thin pieces of cloth and plants push the floor tiles apart. Animism, defined as ‘certain non-human beings, whether animals or plants or ‘things,’ is regarded by many societies as having characteristics that traditional Western or Euro-American rationality equates exclusively with humanity. It emphasizes the importance of the unconscious workings and Varo’s belief in animism. A bookcase and a bed flank the second wall figure. The bed placement above the bookcase can be interpreted as an allusion to our relationship with the subconscious mind, the most visible manifestation of our collective psyche. There are two sets of double windows towards the ceiling that form an image of a face’s eyes and lips highlighted in red, which could be interpreted as the unconscious eroticism of the human mind.[“Usaartnews.com. 2020,” “Remedios Varo Set a World Record”] [“Usaartnews.com. 2020,” “Remedios Varo Set a World Record”] [“Usaartnews.com. 2020,” “Remedios Varo Set a World Record”]
The fog enters the study through a door on the right side of the room, filled with brownish voids. A bird flies into the brown fog, representing the subconscious. Its grayish-blue color complements the study’s interior; this stark contrast in color may be construed as a meeting point for different levels of awareness. The brown outside portion of the study, which represents the deeper depths of the unconscious, serves as a transition from the study’s grey wallpaper. Varo’s use of multiple states of awareness and unconsciousness is further evidenced by the scarlet chair in the far right corner of the room, which has a nest of birds emerging from its back pillows.[“Usaartnews.com. 2020,” “Remedios Varo Set a World Record”]
This image places a strong emphasis on the distinction between red and grey colors. The strange obsession with the bird’s nest on the ripped seat cushion continues. The chair’s back is an unlikely location for a nest, making the bird’s nest placement “anti-natural.” But what could be more natural than a bird deciding where to lay its eggs? It’s not uncommon for animals to make a home in abandoned human structures. The animal’s survival instincts are used as a metaphor for the unconscious’s incomprehensible and inescapable aspects in this image. It is a recurring theme in Varo’s work, causing minor shock in the audience’s minds and encouraging them to consider this illusion to portray the unconscious, emphasizing its importance as a part of the entire human consciousness.[“Usaartnews.com. 2020,” “Remedios Varo Set a World Record”]
Another manifestation of the unconscious’ presence is the shreds of gray fabric that resemble the clothing of the wall figure, as well as the numerous sprouts of plants crawling into the study from beneath the tiles. Invading the conscious area discreetly with plant vines and textiles creates the illusion of an invisible and unchecked consciousness lurking above the conscious section of the mind. Invading plants serve the same purpose as wallpaper, which represents the unconscious. However, by adopting the qualities of climbers quietly taking over areas, it demonstrates its obviously significant existence while remaining completely invisible to the composer, who is solely focused on his awareness.
102870025273000Harmony 1956
About the Artwork
Art form: Painting
Subject and objects: Allegorical scene
Style of art: Surrealism
Technique: Oil
Materials: Masonic
Date of creation: 1956
Size: 76×94 cm
Exhibition Review
Over the course of his career, Varo has produced 384 pieces of art, the majority of which are paintings. Walter Gruen gave the Museo de Arte Moderno of Mexico City 38 of Varo’s most famous works. The researchers have established that Gallery Wendi Norris has been working with Varo’s art since 2004 and has been the only gallery to offer a solo show of the artist since her death. As for Harmony, this is the most impressive art of Remedios Varo on the market for quite some time. A collection like this is undoubtedly a one-of-a-kind phenomenon. A painting by her that was sold a decade ago would be comparable to the Harmony piece in terms of its sales potential. For this reason, collectors who hold valuable Varo’s artwork are rarely willing to let it go. No one has been interested in selling the picture for the past ten years. This industry has so much passion and sophistication that I don’t think anybody will be flipping Remedios Varo’s “Harmony” painting.[Tessa Solomon 2020. “Remedios Varo’s Mystical, Surreal Paintings Continue to Captivate.” ARTnews.Com. October 30, 2020. /feature/who-is-remedios-varo-and-why-is-she-important-1234574762/.]
An autonomous curator who organized an exhibition of Varo’s work for the Museum of Contemporary Art in Mexico City in 2008 credited Gurdjieff’s teachings with allowing her to access her most profound imagination. Workshop participants could spend six hours focused on an inanimate item, like a wooden chair and the life that previously resided inside it. For instance, the chair’s wood came from a tree that was once living.[Bree Hettrick-Heimbach, 2018. “Remedios Varo — Gallery Wendi Norris.” Gallery Wendi Norris | San Francisco. August 2, 2018. /artists-collection/remedios-varo.]
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