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Dream

Dreamed 1964 by Toyen

We don't have the text of this dream from Toyen's postwar Paris years. The elements in the painting are symbols Toyen used repeatedly, though--she often paints herself as a shadow or ghost, and big cats often mean women, sensuality and/or sex. The diamond shape repeated upper left is a symbol used by Czech graffiti artists to mean vagina. So... something about sex, probably lesbian sex (Toyen liked girls) but she's not giving us specifics.

'Dream', painted 1964 by Toyen.
At a wild guess... this was the start of the mod/hippie years, the miniskirt had just come in. She saw a flock of Parisian jeunes filles flashing their legs, and felt like a leopard spotting antelope--wanting to pounce. Not to bite--notice the leopard's claws are not out. Velvet paws! She knows how to play nice.

But how to choose? An embarrassment of riches. Did she feel... cornered?

SOURCE: Magnetic Woman: Toyen and the Surrealist Erotic by Karla Huebner, 2020, pp.271, 273.


LISTS AND LINKS: shadows - big cats - symbols - genitalia - lesbians - frustration? - surrealism - Paris - more Toyen - dream paintings - 4 years later, self as leopard again: New World of Love

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