Souvenir

In his pictorial poem Souvenir, Štyrský worked with a metaphor, popular in his day, alluding to an artist embodying a tourist discovering “all the beauties of the world”. The main element is a map of the Gulf of Genoa. Around it are coloured and black−and−white images related to the sea and life in the depths and on shore. Women in bathing suits were popular motifs. Here we see five coquettish girls sitting on the beach with white inscriptions that cannot be deciphered, which makes them a mysterious signal. The peculiar fish with a luminescent outline, known as the ocean sunfish, has the zoologically correct and poetically sounding French term “poisson lune” attached to it. However, the private signs are even more telling: the crosses, marking a location on the map and one of the girls, imply the idea of an amorous adventure. Souvenir is a typical “postcard from Utopia”, from a journey made in search of the promised land of Poetism.