In the Second Manifesto of Surrealism, Breton wrote that ‘the simplest surrealist act consists of dashing down into the street, pistol in hand, and firing blindly, as fast as you can pull the trigger, into the crowd’ (1) As a way of destroying the logic of ordinary daily life, this proposal meets all requirements. Acts of extreme violence fascinated the surrealists. In France the gruesome double murders by the Papin sisters or the patricide by the 18 year old Violette Nozière are cases in point. In England, the cause celebre for the London group was the suicide of Sonia Araquistain, recorded by Colquhoun in Dreaming Leaps (c.1945), one of the few works where there is unequivocal evidence that her inspiration came from a contemporary, external event .
The surrealists’ own acts of violence were perpetrated philosophically against logic and rationality, artistically against the image of women and mortally against themselves; a significant number chose suicide as their exit route. Less extreme forms of protest took the form of engagement in political activity. This was much more so in France than in England, although some, limited, action took place in London, especially in relation to the Spanish Civil War (2). Colquhoun’s involvement in such activities was minimal. Looking back, in 1967, she wrote:
“I had always objected to political commitments unsupported by
action…effective revolutionary action was a full-time job and,
therefore, irreconcilable with a creative life.” (3)
Her participation was limited to sending works to a number of exhibitions during the war years which aimed to raise funds for refugees and war victims, organised by bodies such as the Artists International Association. In 1942 she contributed an etching to Salvo for Russia, a volume to raise funds for women and children in soviet Russia. Her etching, Zodiac (1942), unlike many of the other contributions, made no reference to the wartime struggle but was a simplified reworking of Dance of the Nine Opals (1942), an image of the earth’s chthonic forces.
There are a small number of works which may contain a reference to contemporary political events. It has been claimed that Marlowe’s Faust (1931) and Rivieres Tiedes (1939) make reference to contemporary political circumstances, but the evidence is not strong. A more plausible case can be made for E.L.A.S. (1945) and, perhaps, Atomic Psychosis (1952).
Historically, occult activities have sometimes been associated with political activity and social reform, but this was never so for Colquhoun. Overall, she was more concerned with changing her own inner world than with changing the quotidian outer. Her interest was in effecting personal and spiritual growth rather than in cultural change or in movement towards a political utopia. Her interest in the status of women gelled into an exploration of spiritual gender and the importance of the female principle – the ways in which the gendered fragments of a broken androgynous unity could be restored.
Notes
1. Breton, A. Second Surrealist Manifesto. Published in English translation in Seaver, R. and Lane, H.R. Manifestos of Surrealism, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, 1967. See p.125
2. Remy, M. Surrealism in Britain,Ashgate, Aldershot, 1999. See Chapter 4.
3. Exhibition catalogue: Penzance, Newlyn-Orion Galleries, 27th February - 23rd March 1976. Ithell Colquhoun: Surrealism, Paintings, Drawings, Collages 1936-76. The quotation is from the artist’s introductory essay.
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