Claire and the Unicorn:
a portrait

Though this is a portrait of Claire, I wanted to show her that to find her inner freedom, to liberate her soul, I felt she needed to find within herself her pure male force. This force, represented by the unicorn, would enable her to experience and receive male love without having to give something in return.

From my understanding, within ourselves the female and the male love forces are equally latent. Usually, the woman finds the spiritual female love naturally, but often she looks outside herself for the spiritual male love. I understood that she needed to find this love within herself to be complete.

I suggested that she should start to see that the forces that manipulate us are egocentric and not always for our own good; they wear masks and it is often difficult to differentiate the good ones from the bad. In the painting I show these forces in the shadow on the bridge, between the outer and the inner self which is on the other side, where the love is.

The scarf around her neck symbolises her freed soul that will eventually go back to the source of creation. Claire had breast cancer; she died with no fear and in complete serenity two years after the painting was completed. The landscape was the view that she saw from her small Provencal home.

—Léonard Lassalle