Degree Type

Honors Capstone Project

Date of Submission

Spring 5-1-2014

Capstone Advisor

Kathryn Everly, Associate Professor of Spanish Literature and Culture

Honors Reader

Luis Castañeda, Assistant Professor of Art History

Capstone Major

Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics

Capstone College

Arts and Science

Audio/Visual Component

no

Capstone Prize Winner

no

Won Capstone Funding

no

Honors Categories

Humanities

Subject Categories

Other Spanish and Portuguese Language and Literature | Spanish and Portuguese Language and Literature | Spanish Literature

Abstract

Surrealism—a literary and artistic movement that has often been criticized for being misogynistic—stemmed from the idea of representing the unconscious mind, unburdened by societal norms. Several female surrealist artists and writers did emerge during the movement, including Remedios Varo, a Catalan surrealist painter. Throughout the early stages of her career, Varo was barely recognized by her male surrealist counterparts. Varo’s gender and background influenced her interpretation of femininity. When comparing Varo’s paintings with those of another famous Catalan surrealist, Salvador Dalí, the difference in the representation of women is striking. Unlike Varo, Dalí conformed to the typical depiction of the surrealist women as an object of desire or horror. Dalí’s representation of women is heavily influenced by their roles in society and treatment at the time. On the other hand, Varo broke the mold of the standard surrealist woman and depicted independent women in search of individual identities. Unlike Dalí, Varo ignored the social boundaries that had been set forth and attempted to freely express her unconscious mind, creating empowering surreal images of women.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

Share

COinS
 
 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.