In the art of the 20th century the dream is directly related with mainly two representational movements: metaphysical painting and surrealism. In both cases the reference to the dream is a fundamental element, both for the artistic act and experience and for the in-terpretational procedure. In the metaphysical painting, and in the oeuvre of its most important artist, Giorgio de Chirico, in particular, the reference to the dream is apparent in the world represented in his paintings: a mysterious and enigmatic world, full of questions and secrets, that the spectator has the impression that he is seeing or visiting for the first time, “as if it is viewed through the window of a dream”. Everyday reality in the metaphysical pictures is approached by removing the veil, or the utilitarian dimension of things, that is blurring its poetic and metaphysical potential, like the dream: everyday scenes and situations are “directed” in another framework, beyond reality. In the case of surrealism, the feeling of the not-recognisable, the unexplained reasonably, the unreal, which derives from the intentionally paradoxical and unexpected unions of objects, removed from their physical environment, correlates the surrealistic with the oneiric pictures. And this happens through an “eye in fierce crisis”, which produces clear and penetrating pictures that cause confusion and embarrassment. These two artistic movements are epitomized in modern Greek art in the oeuvre of Nikos Eggonopoulos, whose pictures, both in word and painting, reveal that the painter-poet was indeed seeing dreams in his eyes …
I Am Seeing Dreams in My Eyes
24 Aug 2012
by Archaeology Newsroom
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