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The first-ever history of the representation of dreams in Western painting, illustrated with works by more than 130 artistsOrganized by period, from the Middle Ages to the present, this engaging book shows how the idea of the dream, and its depictions, have shifted throughout history, from the biblical dream -- a communication from God -- to the deeply personal dream, the lighthearted fantasy, the nightmare. Sometimes these ideas have existed simultaneously: thus we have, only a few years apart, Raphael's limpid High Renaissance composition of Jacob dreaming his Ladder; Albrecht Drer's watercolor of a mysterious deluge that he saw in his own slumbers; and Hieronymus Bosch's nightmarish hellscapes. More recently, movements such as Symbolism and Surrealism have taken the dream as a primary source of inspiration, even conflating dreaming and the creative process itself.



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