SCYLLA, 1938
Oil on board. 36 x 24in. (91.4 x 61.0cm.)
Signed.
London Road address on the reverse.
Provenance
Tate Gallery. Purchased 1977, Accession No. TO2140.
Exhibited
London, Mayor Gallery, 1939, No 4.
Penzance, Newlyn Gallery, 1961, No. 14.
Penzance, Newlyn Gallery, 1971.
London, Hamet Gallery, 1971, No. 28.
London, Leva Gallery, 1974, No. 9, illustrated in b/w in the catalogue.
London, Camden Arts Centre, 1974-5, No. 18.
Penzance, Newlyn Orion Gallery, 1976, No. 3.
London, Parkin Gallery, 1977, No. 17.
London, Hayward Gallery, 1978, No. 14:10.
Marseilles, Galerie de la Vieille Charité2, 1986.
Swansea, Glyn Vivian Art Gallery, 1986, No. 45, illustrated in b/w in the catalogue.
Literature
Illustrated in b/w in the London Bulletin No. 17, p15.
Illustrated in b/w by Ades fig. 2 and discussed p.40.
The Tate Gallery, Liverpool, Surrealism in the Tate Gallery Collection, 1988, illustrated in colour p18.
Illustrated in b/w by Chadwick pl. 88, p.105.
Illustrated in b/w by Battersby, pl43, p135, discussed p134-35.
Discussed by Remy (1999) p 204-5.
Illustrated in colour by Foster p 85.
Ratcliffe (2007) illus. col. pl. 32.
Image and full catalogue entry available at the Tate Gallery website.
The artist has confirmed that the image was inspired by what she could see of her legs and lower torso whilst lying in the bath. In a response to the article by Ades, Colquhoun denied that the rocky pillars are explicitly phallic, whilst conceding that they could be read in this way.
The painting contains the golden section. That is, that the length of the shorter side is 62% of the length of the longer side. The rectangular panel upon which the painting was executed is slightly too wide for this proportion, so Colquhoun has painted a narrow stripe of grey paint along each vertical side to reduce the width of the painted image to the correct proportion. The golden section is also to be found within the composition itself. Thus, the level of the horizon is set at the golden section of the height of the painting. Markings on a study for the work indicate that it has also determined the positioning of the apex of the left knee/rock and of the seaweed/pubic hair.
The title refers most obviously to the myth of Scylla and Charybdis that occurs in Homer’s Odyssey. Scylla was the six-headed monster who ate six of Odysseus’ men. Another source is the myth of Scylla, the daughter of King Nisus of Megara who, for love of the invading King Minos, pulled the hair from her father’s head which protected his life.
Scylla is a painting in which two pillars of rock rise out of the sea. The prow of a boat nuzzles its way between them. The painting was inspired by what she could see of her legs and lower torso as she lay in the bath, so the rock towers are also to be read as her legs and the patch of seaweed as pubic hair. She, therefore, invites the viewer to gaze at her thighs and, as the boat edges its way between the rocky pillars, to imagine her sexual penetration. The legend of Scylla, from which the painting derives its title, adds a twist to this invitation, demonstrating both the allure and the horror that the female body can hold for men. In mythology, Scylla was a beautiful maiden, transformed into a sea-weed covered monster by the god Glaucus as a punishment for rejecting his sexual advances. Paintings of an explicitly sexual subject are as much about power as they are about sex; in Scylla, Colquhoun has converted herself into the siren whose attraction for men is both irresistible and fatal.
In this work we see the convergence of a number of themes that occur in Colquhoun’s work: a powerful woman, a disempowered male figure and the blending of a body with landscape.
For further notes on the technique and history of the work, the Tate Gallery full catalogue entry should be read.
When shown in the Mayor Gallery exhibition, 1939, it was part of a seven piece sequence called Méditerranée. The other works in the series are L'Ancre (1939) ; Beau Gosse (1939); Gouffres Amers (1939); L'Helice (1939); Le Phare (1939); Rivières Tièdes (1939).
References
Ades, D. Notes on Two Women Surrealist Painters: Eileen Agar and Ithell Colquhoun. Oxford Art Journal, 3(1) (April 1980): 36-42.
Battersby, C. Just Jamming: Irigaray, Painting and Psychoanalysis. in K. Deepwell (ed) New Feminist Art Criticism. Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1995.
Chadwick, W. Women Artists and the Surrealist Movement, Thames and Hudson, London 1985.
Foster, A. Tate Women Artists. Tate publishing 2004.
Ratcliffe, E. Ithell Colquhoun. Mandrake, Oxford. 2007.
Remy, M. Surrealism in Britain, Ashgate, Aldershot, 1999.