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There& #39;s been lots of stuff in the papers about people dreaming more than they usual during the Great Lockdown. I certainly have. Over the centuries, art has seen plenty of attempts to capture the sensation of dreaming. Here are my Top Ten dream pictures. In ascending order...
10/ The Arrival, by Giorgio de Chirico (1913). De Chirco is the go-to guy when it comes to painted dreams. The Surrealists loved his empty piazzas and puffing trains. What he really pinned down brilliantly is that sense of frightening isolation - no one there, except you.
9/ The Frogs Asking for a King, by Gustave Moreau (1879). Moreau& #39;s tremulous Symbolist fantasies are usually full of expiring princesses and flying dragons. But he also illustrated the fables of La Fontaine, and did it well. The frogs want a king. So the gods send them...a heron!
8/ Altarpiece, by Hilma af Klint (1915). To create her nutty abstractions, Hilma af Klint organised seances with a group of women who called themselves The Five. While in a trance, af Klint allowed a supreme being known as the High Master to guide her hand as she drew...
7/ The Persistence of Memory, by Salvador Dali (1931). You can& #39;t leave out Dali when it comes to dream pictures. Melting clocks, desert landscapes, crawling ants, barren trees - every good Dali painting seems determined to set a new record for cramming in the most dream cliches.
6/Penitent Magdalene, by Artemisia Gentileschi (1625). The story goes that for the last 30 years of her life Mary Magdalene lived alone in a cave in Provence with no food or water. She survived on the celestial music sent down to her at night by God. Hope she& #39;s got her earphones!
5/ The Dream of the Fisherman& #39;s Wife, by Hokusai ( 1814). The great Japanese print maker, Hokusai, had a sideline in Shunga - Japanese eroticism. The text tells the story of a woman diver who dreams of being pleasured by an octopus. The noises we hear are: zubu, zubu; fu fu.
4/ Self-portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird, by Frida Khalo (1940). Frida Kahlo& #39;s self-portraits probably fall into the category of daydreams rather than dreams. It& #39;s as if her imagination is strolling through the past, remembering fantastical encounters with nature.
3/ The Knight& #39;s Dream, by Antonio de Pereda ( c.1650). This scary picture hangs in the chapel of the Academy of San Fernando in Madrid. While the knight sleeps, an angel fills his table with symbols of life& #39;s brevity. Skulls, flowers, money, music - here today, gone tomorrow.
2/ Eine Kleine Nachtsmusic, by Dorothea Tanning (1943). & #39;It& #39;s about confrontation& #39;, Tanning said of this tiny picture that packs a big wallop. The little girls are her. The sense of endless wandering comes from a dream. The spooky sunflower on the stairs is a masculine presence.
1/ The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters , by Goya (1799). The opening plate of Goya& #39;s Caprichos is a self-portrait. Goya has fallen asleep at his desk, and while he slumbers, the contents of his imagination have escaped from his head, and out into the world.. So step carefully..
