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The first-ever history of the representation of dreams in Western painting, illustrated with works by more than 130 artists
About the author
Daniel Bergez is a scholar, curator, and critic whose work focuses on the relationship between painting and literature. His books in French include
Literature and Painting;
To Paint, To Write: The Dialogue of the Arts;
The Salon and Its Artists; and
Gao Xingjian: Painter of the Soul, which won the Prix Bernier of the Académie des Beaux-Arts. Bergez is also a painter whose work is regularly exhibited in France, the U.S., China, and Japan.
Summary
First published in France in 2017 by aEditions Citadelles & Mazenod.
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Featured in Literary Hub's Fall Nonfiction Preview
"…Bergez's survey is almost like a museum exhibition between the covers of a book. It is full of rich analysis of individual works animated by sleep, reverie, nightmares, and the unconscious. … The book features many of art history’s usual stars (Dürer, Picasso) but also introduces less well-known figures, like Tamara de Lempicka, whose angular and sharply cropped painting of a sleeping woman offers an entrée into synthetic Cubism. In other words, Bergez delivers not only a survey of the dream in painting, from the Middle Ages to the early twentieth century, but also an alternate history of European art." Booklist
“[A] beautifully illustrated volume. ... This is a revealing, contemplative historical survey of imagination depicted in Western art.” Publishers Weekly
"The commentary, like the images that accompany it, is informative and fascinating. The selection of illustrations is masterful." Le Figaro
"The author's exploration of these dreamlike territories, more iconographic than theoretical, is full of literary knowledge that clarifies and enriches the subject." Connaissance des Arts
