Leonora Carrington Project

REVISION NOTES:

• The 2009 draft was submitted, but not fully reviewed when I was a student at the Ohio State University. During the composition process, my adviser pointed out a number of issues: 1) I needed to more substantially connect the style and contents of the paper to the work of Hieronymus Bosch in order to establish that Carrington was using his work as model for the composition of the Magical World of the Mayas; 2) There was not enough support for the idea that Carrington was using Carl Jung's Psychology of Transference as a model for the process of individuation figured into her iconographic program; 3) the paper is difficult to read, does not proceed logically, and, largely, does not conform to conventions in the History of Art.
• The 2011 draft was an attempt to address the problems pointed out by my adviser at OSU. I added a detailed section on Bosch and his alchemical models as well as interpretations of paintings using in those models. Second, I stopped claiming that Carrington used Jung's model directly and simply suggested that his work influenced her--I could not find evidence that Carrington had read and employed the Psychology of Transference in the Magical World of the Mayas. Third, I attempted to add an abstract/brief overview to the introduction in order to orient the reader to the scope of the painting.
• As I continue to work on the project this summer, I have two immediate goals. First, I have posted a reverse outline of the larger 2011 draft here. The purpose of this is to help me further organize and expand the paper. My peers at the Southern Arizona Writing Project suggested that I use this outline to split the 2011 draft into several papers that cover each component of my interpretation in more depth as well as elucidate the aspects of Carrington's own experience the underlie the composition of the piece. In addition, I have posted a working draft of the first part of this larger project, Carrington's participation in the Surrealist movement and her specific theories with regard to surrrealism.
• July 2, 2018: 1) Modern Art and the Surrealist Movement form the necessary backdrop for understanding the specifies in MMM and, necessarily, will be the first chapter after the introduction; 2) Footnotes moved to the end of the chapter spacing/formatting fixed; 3) Added Jung and popular occultism section; 4) Added Jungian Alchemy and MMM section; 5) still needs a conclusion and introductory statement; 6) before moving forward, I have to survey scholarship about surrealism, Jungian alchemy, MMM, and Carrington’s biography in the past five years (I have not been back to the library since then).