After last time’s jolly romp with Don Juan’s Breakfast, I am going to the opposite extreme. This picture by Kay Sage has a desperately sad feeling about it. I don’t think you need to know that the artist was depressed and recently bereaved when she painted it to appreciate the unhappiness, or rather the lack of the ability to feel joy, contained within it. She took her own life a few years later. I have tried to face this disturbing image directly and write down the words that it conjures up for me.
Afterwards, to cheer yourself up, why not go and reread some of the sunnier Fur Cup encounters such as the Hollywood actress who finds herself in a collage by André Breton here or the mother and daughter arguing about Tanning’s sexy little girls here?
Finally, more good news: next time I post I hope to be able to reveal the cover of my new novel about the women surrealists, Swimming with Tigers, and unveil a new website where you can find out more.
Thanks so much for reading and do leave a comment if you have the time and inclination; I love hearing how these surrealist images (and my encounters with them) strike you.
This is my life now. These are my days to come. All is grey, or worse than grey: no colour at all. My days are set out at intervals with the ropy mists of sleep between them. Each stopping-place is suspended over a head-spinning, nauseating abyss.
My joy was once a bright waving flag: a happy, fluid costume of movement and freedom. But now my supple, dancing spirit is encased in the rigidity of grief, confined to a cage of memories and regret.
My every tomorrow is a day never to see you again.
These days go on into the distance and I am weary of moving from one to the next. On the far horizon is an empty structure and that is the day when I will be gone. My slippery silk of a soul will wriggle up and out of the scaffolding of my bereaved body to merge into the mists, with you.
With you at last.
Wow Kay Sage...I'd never heard of her until now. Thanks for opening my eyes. I will look for China Eggs.
Dang.