The dream is one of the first manifestations of our unconscious. This is a well known thing.
Things we want, things we fear, things we want to remove and forget.
Not even the unconscious knows exactly whether its valence is positive or negative.
We know we dream.
Many seeds of our fantasy, however, derive from the dream. And consequently the fairy tales. When we dream a horse can become a unicorn, an animal can become a fantastic being.
One of the most evocative artistic exponents ever in describing the dimension of the dream and the fairy was certainly John Anster Christian Fitzgerald (1819-1906), whom we will often meet in this column.
One of his greatest artistic masterpieces is the enchanting “Dreams”, painted in 1858.
There are several versions of this work, but perhaps this one represents the most complete, the most emblematic, even of a literary dimension.
When writing in Shakespeare’s “Tempest“
“We, We are made of the same material of which dreams are made and our life is made up like a dream“
This sentence represents a gateway to a dream dimension – reality in which the traces of the previous night still seem possible and real, upon awakening.
For this Fitzgerald represents the bedroom that is flooded with light. It’s dawn.
The girl, warm in her fur coat, is still living in the company of all the characters dancing around her bed.
There are a gentleman and a lady, little monsters, beings with wings, demons that play. All creatures that are becoming transparent with the impending daylight.
For the girl they are still playmates, but soon they will be evanescent elements of a world that will no longer exist.
But which nevertheless may still exist in the fairy tale.
The painter seems to tell us: it’s easy to say “dream”: but if tomorrow the girl tells a child about that fairy who in a dream pulled her hair or made her drink an infusion from her glass, that’s it – in shape oral- it would become a fairy tale.
The story, handed down and enriched, is largely fueled by what comes from our unconscious.
This is why we never forget fairy tales.
Fairy Tale – “Dreams”
Every Thursday, even on Instagram
