Art Historians overlook Carrington’s role in the Surrealist movement. It seems as though women were over-shadowed in this period due to the sexual focus upon the female form. The style glorified madness, rejecting the "logic" that brought on the World Wars of the first half of the 20th century.  This woman was actually institutionalised by her family while, in Madrid, “she was found at the British embassy issuing threats to kill Hitler and calling for the metaphysical liberation of humanity.” (1)
 
Carrington was the romantic partner of Max Ernst, one of the more renowned members of the surrealist movement. He left his wife for her. Together they embarked on a mysterious journey, using their art to symbolically represent the elements of their subconscious. Ernst was taken away to a concentration camp during World War II for being considered an enemy alien by the Nazis. She was devastated by this loss, assuming he had been killed. Instead she met him again in 1940 with another woman who had helped him while she had been in confinement.

Some argue that they both created their best works after their relationship was over. It certainly hardened Carrington, giving her all the more resolve to pour into her purposeful paintings.

Carrington didn’t subscribe to the veneration of madness. She instead felt herself on a mission to reintroduce humankind to their imagination and subconscious. The Surrealists were the artistic movement most focused on women – their sexualised form, not their identity. Poet Andre Breton gave women the title of muse, which became a popular surrealist theory. Said Carrington in 1983, “I didn’t have time to be anuone’s muse. […] I was too busy rebelling against my family and learning to be an artist.” (2)

Carrington’s Self-Portrait of 1938, painted a couple of years after her meeting Ernst, blurs the boundaries between animate and inanimate, human and animal. Animal symbols were very prevalent in the works of Surrealist women and Carrington had a special affinity for horses. She was strongly influenced by the Celtic myths recounted to her by her mother in her youth.

The rocking horse in this painting refers to her short-story “The Oval Lady”, in which the toy horse returns his girl-owner’s love and flies them away from her father. The rocking horse was named Tartar (after Tartarus, a variation of the Greek underworld.) Painted the same colour as Carrington’s skin, we can see it as a symbol of the artist’s longing for escape.

White creatures are quite prominent in Carrington’s work and nearly all of them admittedly refer to Max Ernst, the lover that introduced her to surrealism. He had a full head of white hair. We can assume the horse running freely outside the window represents him.

The artist’s own legs are painted to resemble the flanks of a horse, yet she is placed next to a hyena that has the same coloured fur as Carrington’s hair and shoes. The three-breasted wild beast represents “passionate impulses,” as defined by Freud.

The publication of Robert Graves’ The White Goddess in 1948 had a profound impact on Carrington, who called it “the greatest revelation in [her] life.” (4) This reveals her to be a spiritually, like-minded individual to many of us. Her paintings show us a valuable way for us to explore our own beliefs and psyche, a different way for one to “Know Thyself.”  This extra-ordinary woman is certainly an inspiration to me, having shown the power and self-exploration one can achieve in a painting.


(1) Commire, Anne, ed. Women in World History. Vol. 3 1999. Waterford, CT: Yorkin Publications. Pp 428.
(2) Commire, Anne, ed. Women in World History. Vol. 3 1999. Waterford, CT: Yorkin Publications. Pp 425.
(3) Mary Ann, ed. Surealism and Women. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1991. Pp. 160.
(4) Commire, Anne, ed. Women in World History. Vol. 3 1999. Waterford, CT: Yorkin Publications. Pp 430.