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Day and Night

Dreamed 1940 by Toyen

This drawing is an untitled part of a whole series, Day and Night--Toyen's only dream-related art during the war that I know of. A fragmentary little girl (her feet are missing) alone by ruins in a desert. It has many of the same themes as her 1930s dream-paintings like Sen (Dream) or Spící (Sleeper). Toyen never spoke of her childhood, but she left home young and never contacted her family again. I'm convinced that her dreams of this period wrestled with memories of childhood abuse.

Yawning girl above desert horde of toy rabbits; from the series 'Day and Night', drawn 1940 by Toyen. Click to enlarge.
But though it's an uneasy composition, there are signs of healing--for the first time, she's mostly present: she has a face. The rabbits may be toys, but they seem to be reproducing--the first sign of life in the waste.

SOURCE: Magnetic Woman: Toyen and the Surrealist Erotic by Karla Huebner, 2020, pp.218.


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