Dreams have always inspired artists to produce real visual images. Paintings in pre-historic walls are evidence that human beings have been representing their dreams since time immemorial. Artists in all generations since man’s civilization have been using dreams as inspiration for their works (Barrett 7). Artists such William Blake, Salvador Dali and Edward Burne-Jones, are among those painters that have used dreams as their inspiration.
William Blake Jacob’s ladder (1800)
William Blake was an English painter, poet, and printmaker in the Romantic Age. Blake was talented in expressiveness and creativity. Most of his works lack the influence of other artists. They seem to stem directly from his imagination. For instance, his artwork Jacob’s ladder, Blake brings out a representation of what the Biblical Jacob could have seen in his dream. This representation is dreamlike as the images lack any meaningful explanation with the real world.
Salvador Dali, The Dream, (1931).
The Dream has a connection to a visual the painter saw in his dream. Dreams are not always as clear. One sees representations that are difficult to understand or that are confusing. Looking at the painting ‘The Dream' it is evident that there is a connection between the painting and the dream of the painter. Dali Salvador was a surrealist that believed human imagination was at its best during the hypnologic state. It is a state between wakefulness and partial sleep. He considered dreams as a central element of the human imagination. This painting is a representation of one of his dreams.
Edward Burne-Jones, The Rose Bower (1890)
The Rose Bower is a painting depicting a beautiful lady sleeping surrounded by her attendants who are also sleeping. They seem to be in a dream-like state. Edward Burne-Jones was a Welsh designer and artist of the Pre-Raphaelite movement. He also used dreams as his inspiration in bringing out visual arts. In this particular painting, he sees a representation of women sleeping in his dream. It is like he is imagining his own state of being asleep and as such represents the same as a visual art. This dream was a representation of the nine muses Jones once saw in his dream that compelled him to represent the same as a visual art.
When one sees an image or images in a dream, this image remains in one's mind when they wake. The images are not always as clear and are often difficult to understand their meanings. The painter, in a bid to understand the meaning of that particular dream, has to relay the same as a visual art to study it in his wakeful state.
Explore any common dreamlike features or lack thereof.
In these images, there dream-like features that are difficult to understand. In William Blake's painting, it is hard for the human mind to fathom the gloriousness of the ladder ascending to heaven. It is just something one would encounter in a dream. In Salvador's painting, the image of a man's head seems to be struggling with the ants covering the mouth. The head also appears large than the other surrounding figures while in the Rose of Bower, the attendants of the sleeping beauty seem so relaxed, a strange scenario in the real world.
Dreams have always been an inspiration to many artists. It has also been an inspiration in some of the works I have a done. Dreams help one imagine images that no one else has ever seen. It is these strange images that compel one to bring them to life to show the world the extent of this world.
Work Cited
Barrett, Deirdre. The Committee of Sleep: How Artists, Scientists, and Athletes Use Their
Dreams for Creative Problem Solving –And How You Can Too. India: Oneiroi Press, 2010.
