A Boy, a Horse, a Writer erin gilbert
Leonora Carrington is recognized as an important Surrealist painter of the 20th century, a rare woman among the Surrealist ranks who refused to play muse or passive femme enfant. Her influential work as a writer, when acknowledged, is often mentioned only in passing, as a curiosity and nothing more. This essay, from the writer and teacher Erin Gilbert, is an attempt to remedy this oversight and point out Carrington’s place in literary history.
A
photograph of Leonora Carrington taken sometime around 1920, when she was about three years old, shows her wearing a white lace dress and standing near a table that holds a tea set and a doll. Her unruly hair stands up from her head in dark tufts, but her posture, even as a toddler, betrays a confidence and poise that renders the childishness of her dress ridiculous. Carrington’s demeanor suggests that whoever dressed her for the photo understood childhood only superficially. She doesn’t look adorable; she looks serious as she fits the rim of a teacup to the indentation between the doll’s porcelain lips. Her chubby hand grips the doll’s shoulder with the
authority of a doctor supporting the shoulder of an invalid. Not only does her imagined world envelop her, it seeps beyond the borders of the photograph—looking at the photo, one searches for traces of steam rising from the empty cup in her hand. Eventually, the force of Carrington’s imagination would free her from the customs and costumes of 20th century Europe represented in the photo. In Mexico she would become famous for Surrealist paintings crawling with creatures and symbols, but her writing is an equally effective— albeit often overlooked—invitation to readers to see what she sees. And what she sees, what she always saw, was transformation.
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