Surrealist painter Victor Brauner considered the large painting The Nuptial March of the Sorcerer (La marche nuptial du sortscié), 1947, one of his most significant works. Typical of his paintings from this period, the large encaustic canvas synthesizes symbols from the diverse spiritual traditions he studied including those from Egyptian, Oceanic, Mayan, and American Indian cultures. In a 1954 letter to Dominique de Menil, Brauner describes the work as a “limitless homage to WOMAN.” He explains further, “It refers to the history of the mind and knowledge, it presents a trajectory of all knowledge, both initiatory and hermetic, which is synthesized in this idea, the triumphant liberation of women. This history of the mind is the single greatest conquest of our poor limited liberty and it is the result of our memory’s greatest adventure, that which leads to a profound knowledge of creative imagination.”
