Comparing The Dream Before Awakening And Henry Fuseli's The Nightmare

The theme I chose was sleep and dreams. I was given Henry Fuseli’s The Nightmare and Salvador Dali’s Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening. For my contemporary expression, I chose an A Nightmare on Elm Street written and directed by Wes Craven.

The earlier pieces both have the subject matter of dreaming. I think that the pieces signify ties to their realities. The two pieces of artwork depict someone’s dream. The contemporary expression I chose also has the theme of dreams that inevitably become their reality.

The Nightmare is an oil painting on canvas by Henry Fuseli painted in 1782. It was painted in England and first appeared at the Royal Academy of London. This work of art is presently located

This is one of the few works he painted in the United States. This work of art is presently located in Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid, Spain. In the painting, Dali’s wife, Gala is resting peacefully on a rock beside a pomegranate. In the back, to the right, there is an elephant with extremely long legs. Two tigers are lunging out of a fish which is lunging out of a pomegranate. There also seems to be a sword that is about to wake her. The light colors that Dali used and the appearance of water signify tranquility.

There is no point of concentration when you first look at the painting. However, I’m drawn to the tigers because of the bold, solid lines applied for them. The elephant in the back is painted sideways and blurred out of sight. The pomegranate is repeated. This is a dream that Gala told Dali that she had.

What I get out of this painting is being jolted awake. I know from my own personal experience, I have the feeling that I’m falling in a dream and the feeling jolts me awake. I wake up feeling confused and disoriented. I see Gala doing this after being

In the movie, four teenagers all share the same nightmare. They are pursued and murdered by a horribly burned child killer, Freddy Krueger. He sits in their psyche, waiting for them to fall asleep, where he takes them to a boiler room and kills them.

When you watch the movie, it is very apparent that the lines between dreams and reality become blurred. When you die in your dream, you die in real life. One of the characters, Nancy challenges Freddy Krueger. She won’t go without a fight and in that fight, she pulls Freddy’s hat out of her dream. As the movie goes on and more slayings occur, Nancy figures out that fear is what gives Freddy his power and tries to overcome him by pulling him out of her dream and killing him.

I think Freddy is a metaphor for things that plague us in our lives. Stress, anxiety, depression, jobs, homes, relationships, lack of relationships and traumas. Freddy encompasses chaos. He’s a face to put fear to, he’s someone to run away from. However, ultimately, it’s up to us to overcome these things even though they keep coming back and try to take us to the boiler room. Though these things can be scary, we can’t give them the power to take us down. We have to be Nancy in our own right and fight until our version of Freddy no longer pursues