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Fantasy Art History
Fantasy Art Work | Van Gogh | Hieronymus Bosch | Paul Gauguin | Paul Cezanne | Auguste Rodin

Remedios Varo : Useless Science or The Alchemist
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Rememdios Varo: Useless Science or The Alchemist

Useless Science or The Alchemist
1955, 104 cm x 54 cm
Oil on Masonite

        In this fantastic painting a man or aged woman sits wrapped in the folds of a black and white checkered blanket drawn out of the tile floor which covers a small, constructed world. She turns a crank which powers a complicated system of gadgetry enclosed in a series of towers and turrets, whose ultimate accomplishment is to fill small bottles which sit neatly on a table. The magical world Varo creates is like a vision inside the head of a scientist, a cubicle of the imagination and world of its own. The black and white checks may symbolize a simplistic world that the alchemist is trying to make sense of. Varo's fantasy is laced with humor and irony. Ethereal mist arising from pipes outside the magic factory perhaps suggesting transcendence.
   
   
   

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