V is for Remedios Varo – anarchist, philosopher, feminist, para-surrealist painter! #AtoZ Challenge
Remedios Varo was born in 1908 in the small town of Angles in Spain, and developed a style of painting that was a wonderful para-surrealist excursion into her imagination.
Surrealism is a a style of art and literature which started around 1924, after the first world war. Surrealist painting often contains images that are non-rational; arrived at by using unexpected juxtaposition of chance effects and objects.
Her father mentored Remedios and encouraged her first artistic endeavours, helping her to become proficient in technical drawing, and also grow into an independent and philosophical thinker.
Her mother was a devout Catholic and sent her to a convent, which made her critical of religion and opposed to religious ideology.
Her feminism, anarchist political views, anti-religious views, and philosophical thinking all influenced her unique (hence ‘para’ surrealist) paintings.
She died from a heart attack, aged only 45, in 1963.
Exquisite painter of
Myth and alchemy,
Ecstasy and agony
Dreamlike canvases of
Illusion, colour, novelty
Original thinker using
Symbols and absurdity
A journey into
© Liz Brownlee
If you enjoy reading about feisty women, and have young female relatives, perhaps you would like to buy Reaching the Stars by me, Jan Dean and Michaela Morgan, written with 9-11 year olds in mind. Available by clicking the link image below:
All material © Liz Brownlee
Image from Wiki under fair use:
- Works permanently located in parks or on streets, squares or other public thoroughfares may be freely reproduced, distributed and communicated by painting, drawing, photography and audiovisual processes.
See Commons:Freedom of Panorama#Spain for more information.