Drawing from the cycle Hide Away, War!

The theme of anxiety, threat and destruction penetrated into all series of drawings created by Toyen during the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia. The nine−part collection “Hide, War!” (“Schovej se, válko!”) from 1944, whose title repeats the appeal made in Lautrémont Maldoror and Poems, was accompanied by an eponymous introductory poem of Jindřich Heisler. All that remains of the animal creatures in the “Hide, War!” series that takes place in an arid, widely opened space, are skeletons, which, however, often act as living beings. Toyen depicted the absurd scene realistically, with compelling accuracy, as “a horrendously vivid dream”. Contrary to many of her contemporaries, the artist did not resort to direct description that she would use to describe the experienced suffering and hopes, nor to Classical mythology or Biblical scenes.