Dreams and Visions
The video I have chosen is called "Dreams and Visions". It discusses the history of visual description of dreams and a connection between art and dreams. The video was not exactly what I have expected it to be. I thought it would be more about history of art in various cultures. Instead, it showed the meaning of dreams and visions in visual art in each culture. For example, Western artists used dreams in their paintings in order to express inner world of their characters. The Saint Teresa is described having a dream full of symbolical ecstasy and anticipation. For Buddhists, dream is an expression of truth. For Islam, dreams are about teaching the journey of the Prophet. It is also a tool for teaching the practice of Muslim religion. For aboriginal people, dreams are about messages from their ancestors; so dreams are the source of knowledge.
The second part of the video talked about art inspired by dreams. And this was the part that I liked the most. It triggered some perception I did not think about before. I have learned that the art can have a communicative role. Dreams expressed in art can both bring mutual comfort to the author and the audience or can show the fears we have in common. The works of Salvador Dali were particularly disturbing, but interesting. His works are difficult to understand in one way, but, I think, the aim of such art is not to express just one meaning. The aim is to cause thinking and wake up the inner vision of one's creative world, which will interpret the images shown. I think that the less exact the images are the more space is left for us to interpret them. I think that in such way, we can create our own image of this or that piece of art. That image would be an inner mirroring of a viewed image. So, through our visual senses, the visual image affects our inner world of unconscious dream, where we are true ourselves. So, the artists connect to us through the universal language understandable better than any verbal expressions - visual images.
Work Cited
Dreams and Visions. Produced by THIRTEEN and WNET.ORG, 2009. Video.
