Ahh, dreams. The oddest place to find inspiration and yet, in my experience, the most reliable place. I am one of those people who has vivid, memorable dreams every night and doesn’t hesitate to tell you all about them (lucky you)! However mundane or fantastical they end up being, my dreams always stick with me for most of the day after I wake up, if not for the next couple of days. This art history-inspired dream is definitely one that I had to share!
I dreamt I was staying at an elaborate hotel in which each room took up the entire story. The walls were made floor to ceiling entirely of windows, so the light was exquisite. Each room had a solid red carpeted floor except for the very center, which held about an 8 by 8 square of glass. This meant one could see down into the room below, all the way down to the lobby, and up to the sky. I must have been taken to this hotel for my birthday since my closest friends were there. One of them explained that she booked this room for us specifically because of the person staying below us.
Peering down into the room below through the convenient pane of glass, I saw a gorgeous chair. Unlike the room that my friends and I were in that had multiple beds, a couch, and a kitchen area, the room below contained only this chair. As I looked at this chair, I knew — in the beautiful, funny way that you seem to know things in dreams — that a famous artist was going to make use of all the light available in this hotel and paint a portrait of someone sitting in this chair. I have no idea who she was, where she was at this time, or who she would be painting, but I found it so touching that my friend had booked this room with the intention that I would get to watch this artist’s process.
Of course, the dream ended before I got to actually see the artist at work. I woke up the next day thinking about who this artist could possibly be and if I had somehow actually seen the painting that she was going to make! Thus, I did what any sane person would do and hopped on the computer to see if any of this was plausible. I started with the chair, since that was the only thing I really knew about this artwork. From “high-backed red chair” to “red gothic throne” to “paintings of gothic throne” to “famous women painter gothic throne”, Google tirelessly worked with me to uncover more of this dream space. Here are some of the pictures that I found that most represented what the chair looked like:
A red-cushioned, high-backed, wooden chair was all I had to offer Google. And unfortunately, that’s all Google could offer me. I briefly considered that the subjects could be the Virgin and Child, as there were some intriguing portraits of these two figures in a similar chair that I found, but I think for once I may just be left with a dream that was simply a dream. Either way, thanks for listening to my odd dream! Let me know if you also dream of hotel painters… or if that’s just me.
