Museum Homework

Jindrich Stysky; Untitled from Emilie Comes to Me in a Dream, 1933. Photomontage/Collage


There was something about this piece by Jindrich Stysky that interested me. It's very dark and twisted and upon researching more of Stysky, It draws a thin line between what would be considered porn and what others see as art. The photo tells a story of lovers. The woman, Emilie, dies and upon departing this earth, she appears in her ex lover's dream. This picture is very erotic, showcasing a penis as well as a woman's vagina but I see something deeper in this collage which was featured in the Erotic Review of the early 1930s. The first thing that caught my attention about the piece was the skeleton (before I even noticed the penis). To me it signifies death and then to see a semi-naked  woman laying next to the skeleton, it made me think of two lovers who had been murdered.  Once I read the actual caption about the photo, I started to think if the man died within his self after Emilie passed away (the skeletal remains wearing boots as representation of a dead man)  and he missed the passion and eroticism that the two once shared (that is why she appeared in his dream, scantily dressed).  I believe that in the dream, Emilie appeared how the man loved to see her the most.