The interminable conflict between women’s objectification and their knowledge of self as subjects within Surrealism developed once women crossed the boundaries from their male endorsed signs of muses, woman-child [femme-enfant] and object of desire, to that of independent creative subjects.28A large section of the theory supporting the reception
of Surrealist tenets by female members artists during the inter-war period, is largely ascribed to Simone de Beauvoir’s analysis in theSecond Sex(1949) of the role of women in Breton’s novels and his inability to “parle de la femme en tant qu’elle est sujet”.29 With reference to Nadja (1927) De Beauvoir claimed that although woman possessed the power of clairvoyance and prediction of the future over men, they were dependent on 26Breton,Surréalisme, 1.
27These words by André Breton, “Trait d’Union”, in Marguerite Bonnet (ed.),Perspective Cavalière, Paris 1970, 11 were written for a preface to a catalogue exhibitionPeinture Surréaliste en Europe, Sarrebruck, 1952
28Gwen Raaberg, “The Problematics of Women and Surrealism”, 2. 29Simone de Beauvoir,Le Deuxième Sexe, Paris 1972, 364.
their male counterparts to enable them to love, and thereby only then becoming whole.30 De Beauvoir then pointed out a similar half-function is attributed to women inArcane 17
(1942) where Breton’s definition offemme-enfantreiterated the same dependent variable as it operated as the complementing “l’autre” sex: “en elle et seulement en elle me semble résider à l’état de transperance absoluel’autreprysme de vision ...”31De Beauvoir classified this vassal role attributed to woman in Breton’s novels as “l’indispensable médiateur”32 in her poetic injunction, for woman operated solely in collaboration with man and never independently, resulting in Breton’s failure to treat women with the stature of subject.33 De Beauvoir attributed the mystery of woman to man in another chapter entitled “Mythe et Realité” in the claim:
Chacun n’estsujetque pour soi; chacun ne peux saisir dans son immanence que soi seule: de ce point de vue l’autre es toujours mystère. Aux yeux des hommes l’oppacité de pour-soi est plus fragrante chez l’autre femenin; ils ne peuvent par aucune effet de sympathie pénétrer son experience singulier.34
In this manner, the essence and therefore, subject of the female “other”, would remain a mystery to man.
In many ways, one could argue that men’s inability to penetrate the experience of
woman limits a man’s visual discourse to the outer boundaries of a woman’s body. Subjected to this discourse, the body as such became an empty vessel of communication for women, alienated in its objectified form from its “solitude subjectif de la conscience”.35In “Mythe et Realité” it was de Beauvoir who first intimated at this schism
between the contingent body and its psyche when she declared: “son crops n’est pas pour
30Ibid., 360.
31André Breton as cited by de Beauvoir,Le Deuxième Sexe, 363. De Beauvoir definedotheras “la vérité de la vie et la poésie et qui seul peut délivrer l’humanité”.
32De Beauvoir,Deuxième Sexe, 360.
33Ibid., 364. To this effect, this secondary and supporting role attributed to women by artist writers like Breton that led to the title of the book toLe Deuxième Sexe.
34Ibid., 387. De Beauvoir’s reference to women’s “expérience singulier” refers to motherhood and birth. De Beauvoir also notes that this same effect occurs amongst women regarding men’s “experience singulier”. 35Ibid., 388.
elle un clair expression d’elle même; elle s’y sent aliénée”.36By examining Vieira’s 1930-32 paintings we can observe this estrangement between the body (mirror reflection) and the subject (Vieira) as she continuously redefines her self-image as author and subject in an attempt to disengage from the male dominated discourse of her female body as an object, continuously re-engaging in new communications with the viewer. It is in view of this unattainable desire that Vieira anchored many of her subsequent images in self- representations, creating strong parallels with the art of many female Surrealist contemporaries.
The opening lines of historian Whitney Chadwick’s book Mirror Images: Women, Surrealism and Self-Representationre-frame de Beavoir’s concept of alienation between body and subject:
In mobilising the body as a primary signifier of its cultural politics Surrealism established new parameters within which women artists begin to explore the complex and ambiguous relationship between body and female identity ... a collective body of self-portraits and self representations that in taking the artist’s own body as a starting point and in collapsing the interior and exterior perceptions of the self continues to reverberate in contemporary practices of women ...37
Chadwick’s reference to an “ambiguous relationship” corresponds with de Beauvoir’s reference to the female “nature physiologique” as “très complex” in its dual interface to cohere the self as “objet” (body) and the self as “suject” (identity).
Surrealism’s incomplete portrait of ‘woman’ as subject and its legitimisation of a highly personal narrative by way of the modèle intérieur, offered ample fertile creative ground for women artists to explore these aspects in the definition of the self as author, subject and object within their narratives. Historian Katharine Conley explains this complex role by describing how women artists assumed their new roles as poet-creators whilst sustaining their ‘old’ roles as muses and objects of desire as well: “les femmes ont joué un rôle au moins double: compagne-muse-modèle d’une part, créatrice artistique 36Ibid..
37Whitney Chadwick, “An Infinite Play of Empty Mirrors”, in Whitney Chadwick (ed.),Mirror Images: women,
d’une autre”.38Their initial objective was to break down the traditional conception of the objectified woman on the canvas, leading many women artists to use their own figures to explore this subversive intent. In this manner, they explored their subjectivity on the battlefield itself of traditional female representation - their bodies.39 This practice persisted through the inter-war period even when the title was not designated “as self- portrait per se”.40 Chadwick points out a number of examples of many women artists relying own their own bodily features to represent female forms on their canvases, such as Leonor Fini’s reiterated use of her “catlike” eyes and “sensuous” mouth, or for that matter Remedios Varos’ abundant hair and “heartshaped” head made her an identifiable hallmark within her œuvre.41 Conley suggests that this consistency developed from the twofold operation that women artists were subjected to: firstly, their inherited consciousness as objects and secondly, their newly acquired identity as authors.42
Essentially, Conley posits that the duality of the female role as both subject and object permits female artists to explore and investigate the definition of self through self- imagery yet most significantly, “à partir des yeux de la femme”.43 In this view, extending
on Finkelstein’s examination, the eyes represent the liminal threshold of knowledge between the external and internal self of thefemaleartist.
In her 1930-1932 self-portrait paintings Vieira examines the subject of self through its objectified form yet rapidly transgresses to the edge of the liminal threshold in 1931, permiting her to complete a fantastical vision in 1932 that continues to bear the title of self-portrait. In this painting, Vieira pursues the self-narrative through the objectification of her form as the child of her childhood memories – “ce petite fille”, also depicted in her earlier paintingLes Balançoires.44However, once Vieira abandons the naïve and child-like expression, thepetite filledisappears altogether making her last appearance inA Nous la 38Katharine Conley, “La nature double des yeux (regardés et regardants) de la femme dans le surréalisme” in (eds.) Georgiana M.M. Colville and Katharine Conley,La Femme s’entête, Louvain 1998, 71.
39Chadwick, “Infinite Play”, 5.
40Whitney Chadwick,Women Artists and the Surrealist Movement, Hampshire 1985, 66. 41Ibid.
42Conley, “Nature Double”, 71. 43Ibid.
Liberté III in 1934. Despite an absence of figures in Vieira’s spatial structures between 1934-35, the artist introduces the figure of the mermaid in 1936 and the harlequin in 1938.45I argue that these new characters are more than mere images and are in fact an extension of the the ongoing internal/external dialectic, or rather subjective/objective field, already underpinning the narrative of Vieira’s self-portraits completed between 1930 and 1932.