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Abstract
While most critics have noted the profound affinity Remedios Varo felt with the ideas she encountered in the esoteric philosophy of G. I. Gurdjieff and his pupil P. D. Ouspensky, only in recent years have they begun to uncover the extent to which this teaching informed her richly symbolic work. This article will show how Gurdjieff’s views on ‘personality’ and ‘essence’, as outlined in Ouspensky’s exposition of his master’s ideas, In Search of the Miraculous, informed Varo’s depiction of a quest for spiritual equilibrium. In doing so, this article will bring to light the importance Varo placed in the development of a robust, spiritual Self.
Abstract
Aunque la mayoría de los críticos han destacado la profunda afinidad que Remedios Varo sentía con las ideas de la filosofía esotérica de G.I. Gurdjieff y su discípulo P. D. Ouspensky, solo en los últimos años han comenzado a descubrir hasta qué punto esta enseñanza influyó en el vocabulario visual de su obra. El objetivo de este artículo es mostrar cómo las enseñanzas de Gurdjieff sobre ‘personalidad’ y ‘esencia’, tal y como las describe Ouspensky en su exposición autorizada, En busca de lo Milagroso, contribuyeron en la búsqueda de equilibrio espiritual representada en la obra de Varo. Así demuestra este artículo la importancia que Varo atribuye al desarrollo de un Yo espiritual.
Notes
1 W. Gruen, ‘Remedios Varo: A Biographical Sketch’, in Remedios Varo: Catálogo razonado, ed. by W. Gruen & R. Ovalle (México, DF: Ediciones Era, 2008 [1994]), pp. 101–09 (p. 108).
2 Gruen, ‘Remedios Varo: A Biographical Sketch’, p. 109.
3 M. De Salzmann, ‘G. I. Gurdjieff’, in The Encyclopedia of Religion, ed. by M. Eliade, 16 vols (London: Macmillan, 1987), vi, 139–40.
4 L. Parkinson Zamora, ‘Misticismo mexicano y la obra mágica de Remedios Varo’, Foro Hispánico: El Laberinto De La Solidaridad, 22 (2002), 57–87 (pp. 78–79). Unless otherwise stated, the translations of Spanish quotations are the author’s own.
5 J. Kaplan, Unexpected Journeys: The Art and Life of Remedios Varo (New York: Abbeville, 1998), pp. 171–72; B. Varo, Remedios Varo: En el centro del microcosmos (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1990), pp. 58–59 and 120–21.
6 T. Arcq, ‘In Search of the Miraculous’, in Five Keys to the Secret World of Remedios Varo, ed. by. A. Ruy Sánchez et al. (Mexico City: Artes De México, 2008), pp. 21–87.
7 D. Comisarenco Mirkin, ‘Remedios Varo, The Artist of a Thousand Faces’, Aurora: The Journal of the History of Art, 10 (2009), 77–114 (p. 78).
8 The term ‘Self’ is used in the manner of Aldous Huxley, in whose philosophy the Self is an inalienable core that is unique to the individual, yet is connected to something greater: A. Huxley, The Perennial Philosophy, Perennial Classics (New York: Harper Perennial, 2004 [1945]), pp. 1–2. Varo’s library contains a Spanish edition of this book from 1949.
9 R. O’Rawe and R. Quance, ‘Crossing the Threshold: Mysticism and Liminality in Remedios Varo’, Trellis Papers Series (Madrid: Gateway Press, forthcoming).
10 The breadth of Varo’s readings was in evidence at a recent exhibition of her work entitled ‘Remedios Varo: La dimensión del pensamiento’ at the Museo de Arte Moderno in Mexico City. Some of the titles from her library were on display, including an edition of Gurdjieff’s Recontres avec des hommes remarquables from 1960; Lama Yongden’s book of Tibetan Buddhism, La Puissance du néant (Paris: Plon, 1954); a Spanish translation of Frank Sherwood Taylor’s Los alquimistas (1957); and René Étiemble’s 1958 biography of Confucius. There was also an important environmentalist text by Rachel Carson, Printemps Silencieux, published the year of Varo’s death.
11 Gurdjieff recorded his teachings as an allegorical tale, published shortly after his death as Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson: All and Everything (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1950).
12 A. Owen, ‘The “Religious Sense” in a Post-War Secular Age’, in The Art of Survival: Gender and History in Europe, 1450–2000. Essays in Honour of Olwen Hufton, ed. by R. Harris & L. Roper (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 159–77 (p. 167).
13 Arcq, ‘In Search of the Miraculous’, pp. 26 and 35.
14 Kaplan, Unexpected Journeys, p. 171.
15 Ediciones Sol published translations of Ouspensky, Maurice Nicoll, and other Fourth Way writings into Spanish. For a description of Robert Collin’s trajectory through the Gurdjieff work with P. D. Ouspensky, see J. Webb, The Harmonious Circle: The Lives and Work of G. I. Gurdjieff, P. D. Ouspensky, and their Followers (London: Thames and Hudson, 1980).
16 Arcq, ‘In Search of the Miraculous’, pp. 35–37.
17 Kaplan, Unexpected Journeys, p. 171.
18 Gruen, ‘Remedios Varo: A Biographical Sketch’, pp. 105–06. In an interview in 2001, Gruen furnished further details: ‘Eva (Sulzer) was experiencing emotional problems that provoked a very serious crisis. Remedios helped to guide her into an esoteric group that was studying the philosophy of the Russian mystic Gurdjieff. Eva flourished and became the leader of the group in Mexico’ (M. MacMasters, ‘La despreocupación de Remedios Varo por el dinero duró hasta el día de su muerte’, in La Jornada, 24 May 2001 <http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2001/05/24/03an1cul.html> [accessed 30 July 2014]). According to Juliana González, ‘Remedios did not belong to any specific esoteric “school” or “group”, nor did she follow any “orthodoxy”’ (‘Remedios Varo’s World and Fantasy World’, Remedios Varo: Catálogo razonado, pp. 89–99 [p. 91]).
19 Varo, Remedios Varo: En el centro del microcosmos, p. 121.
20 Arcq, ‘In Search of the Miraculous’, pp. 47–48.
21 Arcq, ‘In Search of the Miraculous’, p. 24.
22 Arcq, ‘In Search of the Miraculous’, p. 30. In Mexico, Varo would also spend up to a month at a time at the home of Onslow Ford and his wife Jacqueline Johnson, sharing knowledge of mystical ideas, including those of Ouspensky and Gurdjieff.
23 Having drawn great attention for his Tertium Organum (1912), Ouspensky encountered Gurdjieff in 1915 and became his student for ten years. He believed that Gurdjieff held the secret to the ‘miraculous’ which he had spent years searching for in India, Sri Lanka, and Egypt. Although his understanding was greatly advanced by his work with Gurdjieff, he broke with his master in 1924, continuing to develop his own system and encouraging his students to do the same. See Webb, The Harmonious Circle, pp. 458 and 491–93.
24 L. Dalrymple Henderson, ‘Mysticism, Romanticism, and the Fourth Dimension’, in The Spiritual in Art: Abstract Painting 1890–1985, ed. by M. Tuchman (New York: Abbeville Press, 1986), pp. 219–37 (p. 229). Ouspensky’s In Search of the Miraculous records that Gurdjieff recognized the germ of his ideas in his student’s work, the publication of which significantly pre-dates that of his own. However, Gurdjieff claimed that he was not developed enough to understand what he had discovered — an observation with which Ouspensky concurs.
25 Varo, Remedios Varo: En el centro del microcosmos, pp. 58–59.
26 Building upon ideas initially developed in Tertium Organum, In Search of the Miraculous charts Ouspensky’s spiritual journey as the pupil of Gurdjieff (whom he refers to only as ‘G.’) until their break in 1924. Constructed from notes that Ouspensky made whilst working with his master, the book acts as an account of his difficult quest towards an understanding of the ‘miraculous’, including stories of both the path’s difficulties and his elation when he finally makes progress.
27 Zamora, ‘Misticismo mexicano’, p. 78. I owe thanks to Tara Plunkett, who verified the presence of the Ediciones Sol edition of Pedro Ouspensky, En busca de lo milagroso: Fragmentos de una enseñanza desconocida (México: Ediciones Sol, 1952) in Varo’s personal library on a visit to Alexandra Gruen in Mexico City in July 2010.
28 Icon (1945), oil and inlaid mother-of-pearl/wood, 60 x 39 x 5 cm, cat. no. 65. All catalogue numbers are taken from Remedios Varo: Catálogo razonado, available online at <www.remedios-varo.com> [accessed 30 July 2014].
29 Arcq, ‘In Search of the Miraculous’, pp. 26–27.
30 P. D. Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous: Fragments of an Unknown Teaching (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977 [1949]), p. 294.
31 The Call (1961), oil/masonite, 98.5 x 68 cm, cat. no. 329; Useless Science or The Alchemist (1955), oil/masonite, 105 x 53 cm, cat. no. 122.
32 P. R. Frese and S. J. M. Gray, ‘Trees’, in The Encyclopedia of Religion, xv, 28 and 32.
33 See J. E. Cirlot, A Dictionary of Symbols (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2002), pp. 349–50.
34 In To Be Reborn (1960), oil/masonite, 81 x 47 cm, cat. no. 289. This harmony is also echoed by the reflection of the moon in the chalice, symbolizing the coming together of celestial and terrestrial realms. In Useless Science or The Alchemist (1955) (note 31 above), the protagonist wears the floor of the workshop as a cloak, having achieved harmony with the surroundings. The black-and-white checkerboard floor is a common feature of Masonic lodges, where it represents the coming together of opposites and marks a site of initiation.
35 Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, p. 201. He also insists that a master is required to bring the initiate onto the first step. In Gurdjieff’s teachings, a master is very important to a person’s correct development (p. 222). Arcq, ‘In Search of the Miraculous’, p. 27, also offers this interpretation.
36 Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, p. 85.
37 ‘If we develop in ourselves consciousness and will, and subject our mechanical life and all our manifestations to them, we shall escape the power of the moon’ (Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, pp. 85–86).
38 Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, p. 148.
39 Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, p. 161.
40 Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, p. 164.
41 Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, p. 163.
42 Arcq, ‘In Search of the Miraculous’, p. 27.
43 Funambulists (1944), tempera/masonite, 38 x 26.5 cm, cat. no. 61.
44 Funambulists (1944), ink/paper, 28 x 22 cm (approx), cat. no. 62.
45 P. D. Ouspensky, Tertium Organum (Charleston: Bibliobazaar, 2006 [1912]), p. 258.
46 Ouspensky, Tertium Organum, p. 258.
47 Metaphysical Wheels (1944), gouache/Bristol-board, 28.7 x 19.4 cm, cat. no. 59.
48 Crystalline Distortion (1949), Indian ink and pen/Bristol-board, 31.7 x 18, cat. no. 92.
49 Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, pp. 32–33.
50 The text appears under the title ‘Sueño 7’ in R. Varo, Cartas, sueños, y otros textos, ed. by I. Castells (México, DF: Ediciones Era, 1997), pp. 126–27, but as ‘Plasticine’ in E. Mendoza Bolio, ‘A veces escribo como si trazase un boceto’: Los escritos de Remedios Varo (Madrid: Iberoamericana; Frankfurt am Main: Vervuert, 2010), p. 69. No precise date is available for this text, but Mendoza Bolio claims that it was written, along with the other texts authored by Varo, in Mexico between 1941 and 1963.
51 Varo, Cartas, sueños, y otros textos, p. 127. In Gurdjieff’s teaching, the terms ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’ differ from traditional definitions in relation to art. In Ouspensky’s text, ‘G.’ describes the awakened consciousness of the ‘objective’ artist, which he contrasts with the element of chance central to ‘subjective’ art. Within the Fourth Way, ‘objective’ knowledge is attained by observing things in an ‘objective’ state of consciousness, and is therefore only available to the spiritually developed. See Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, pp. 278 and 296.
52 Arcq, ‘In Search of the Miraculous’, p. 40; Kaplan, Unexpected Journeys, p. 172.
53 Encounter (1959), oil/canvas, 40 x 30 cm, cat. no. 253.
54 R. Varo, ‘Comments by Remedios Varo on Some of her Paintings [Addressed to her Brother Dr Rodrigo Varo]’, in Remedios Varo: Catálogo razonado, pp. 111–20 (p. 118).
55 The Encounter (1962), vinyl/Bristol-board, 64 x 44 cm, cat. no. 347.
56 Breaking the Vicious Circle (1962), mixed media/cardboard, 65 x 35 cm, cat. no. 346.
57 In Goddess mythology, the Owl is a symbol of death but also of regeneration. The Bird Goddess in the form of an owl is the ‘nocturnal aspect of the Life-giver’, as Marija Gimbutas puts it, in recognition of the belief that ‘out of every death new life grows’ (M. Gimbutas, The Language of the Goddess (London: Thames and Hudson, 1989), p. 185).
58 In her work, Varo presents the forest as a common place of spiritual investigation. For comparison, Ouspensky makes his own personal breakthrough within a forest: In Search of the Miraculous, pp. 262–63. Moreover, Gurdjieff’s followers were commonly known as the Forest Philosophers; see Arcq, ‘In Search of the Miraculous’, p. 56.
59 Arcq, ‘In Search of the Miraculous’, p. 56.
60 Personage (1961), oil/masonite, 58.5 x 39.5 cm, cat. no. 323.
61 Rupture (1955), oil/masonite, 95 x 60 cm, cat. no. 132.
62 Arcq believes the figure to be a male, whereas Janet Kaplan understands it to be female. See Arcq, ‘In Search of the Miraculous’, pp. 55–56; Kaplan, Unexpected Journeys, p. 24.
63 Arcq, ‘In Search of the Miraculous’, p. 56.
64 Cirlot, A Dictionary of Symbols, p. 203.
65 Cirlot, A Dictionary of Symbols, p. 313.
66 Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, p. 218.
67 Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, p. 71. Despite the androcentric language, readers would have understood that he was also addressing himself to women.