I am currently vacationing in New York City before attending the National Guild of Hypnotists annual convention. I’ve been envious of my husband who has a blog on the global water crisis. He has vowed that while here he will post a daily entry on the subject of water in New York City. He has plenty of issues to draw on. I, on the other hand, have been at a loss to tie hypnosis to New York City. But then today at the MOMA, I came across this painting. As I was studying it, my husband pointed to the placard next to it. “You’ll be interested this one,” he said. And, indeed, I was! Take a look:
Yves Tanguy
American, born France. 1900-1955He Did What He Wanted (1927)
Oil on canvasBequest of Richard S. Zeisler, 2008
This painting was exhibited as part of Tanguy’s first solo show, at the Galerie Surréaliste, Paris, in 1927. Before the exhibition opened Tanguy and Surrealist leader Andre Breton invented titles for the paintings based on a 1922 book called Treaty of Metapsychics by Charles Richet, a Nobel Prize winner for medicine, which explored mysterious forms of cognition—a subject that resonated with the Surrealist interest in the unconscious and in dream states. The title of this work refers to a phenomenon Richet describes in which hypnotized subjects refuse to obey external commands. In early works, such as this one, Tanguy defined his signature style: a vaguely geological, otherworldy terrain strewn with symbols and enigmatic creatures. His biomorphic forms, rendered with a painterly treament of surface that approaches abstraction , had a profound impact on postwar painters such as Matta and Arshile Gorky.
For folks interested in poet surrealist poet, André Breton and automatic writing, see my previous post.
For folks wondering what’s up with hypnotized subjects who refuse to obey external commands, I should explain that it isn’t surprising for me to read that “He Did What He Wanted.” All hypnotized subjects do what they want—and thank goodness for that. No need to worry about a hypnotist making you bark like a dog or empty your bank account into hers. One must be a willing subject for hypnosis to work.
