alchemy, male and female, Anima and Animus, androgyny, microcosm and macrocosm, surrealism, Leonora Carrington, litany, philosopher, duality

The chapter deals with an interpretation of the painting Litany of the Philosophers created by Leonoga Carrington. As a pivotal interpretative key was chosen alchemy, especially its principle “as above, so below,” that is an analogy of microcosm and macrocosm, together with its idea of the communion of male and female principles into an androgynous creature. What connected the surrealist approach of Leonora Carrington with that of alchemy was an effort to shatter dualities functioning in European thinking (nature and culture, matter and spirit, animal and human, reason and emotion/ imagination, man and woman, etc.).In Leonora Carrington’s case, this aim was combined with her effort to subvert the traditional understanding of women in the patriarchal order. To do that, she returned to goddesses of Celtic, Mesopotamian and Egyptian mythologies, finding the sources of women’s power, energy, selfunderstanding and self-esteem within them; she reevaluated the traditional women’s activities, and changed their relationship towards animals. Because of her tendency to “dissolve” borders between gender opposites, Leonora Carrington seems to be in companion with similar attempts in feminist thinking regarding the firmly established (reified and recycled) gender dualities as the main obstacle for the possibility of free self determination of each individual.