Title: Poselstvi Lesa (Message of the Forest) Artist: Toyen (Czech, 1902-1980) Date: 1936 Genre: Surrealism Medium: oil on canvas Location: Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
Considered the most important Czech Surrealist, the artist born Marie Čermínová adopted the name Toyen in early adulthood. The name's source is debated: it has been variously identified as a shortened form of French citoyen ("citizen") or as a play on the Czech sentence To je on ("it is he"). Toyen dressed in clothing traditionally associated with men and used masculine forms within the Czech language.
In this striking painting, a birdlike figure clutches a woman's severed head in its talons, with a wooden surface behind. Birds were a common motif in Surrealism; Max Ernst, for example, used them frequently in his paintings and collages and adopted the identity of Loplop, King of the Birds. The enigmatic use of traditionally feminine imagery, on the other hand, is highly distinctive of Toyen.
