The Troubador
Painted 1959 by Remedios Varo
I chose this nondream example of her Varo's art, along with The Creation of the Birds and Personaje, because I dream so frequently of nonhuman beings myself, and I'm curious about others who do. Varo's ethereal beings mostly focus on work not play, and almost never romance, so this piece stands out.
It's a strange triangle; a dryad who plays the pan-pipes flirts with a troubador; he plays the stretched hair of the mermaid-boat who carries him, as if she's a cello. She doesn't seem to mind a bit--so far. But complications look likely. Will he have to choose whose, um, hollow he wants to climb inside?
In Remedios Varo: Science Fictions ed. by Haskell & Arcq, Alex Zivkovic points out Varo really did explore the upper Orinoco River with some gold prospectors, ten or twelve years before she painted this; she knew these seasonally flooded tropical forests full of strange birds (those are real species peering from the trees--just enlarged).
SOURCES: Remedios Varo: Science Fictions ed. by Haskell & Arcq, 2023, p.104-5, and Viajes Inesperados: el arte y la vida de Remedios Varo by Janet Kaplan, 1998 ed., p.192. But neither book has a high-res image of the finished painting. Found this on the net... and forgot where.
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