Dream states | Lagoon

Horizontal monotype landscape with a grey streaked sky, a broad blue-green hill, an ochre slope at lower left, green fields and a pale winding band at right, dotted with small pink and red flecks.

Printed Weather

Edgar Degas ran an invented landscape through his press in 1892, and the mist in it comes from ink laid thin on the plate.

Dream states10 min read

A broad mountain valley with a lake, distant palace, high fountain, and small procession ascending steps among palms

The Arrival That Never Finishes

Robert S. Duncanson leaves the climax of Lalla Rookh offstage and makes Vale of Kashmir a landscape of permanent approach.

Dream states6 min read

An abstract horizontal image with gridded buildings, roof-like triangles, and overlapping fields of green, red, yellow, pink, and black.

The Town Is Still Rehearsing

Paul Klee’s Tree and Architecture: Rhythms makes roofs, trees, walls, and color change parts in the middle of a performance.

Dream states5 min read

A dark sailboat with two pale figures and a tall white sail sits beneath blue, tan, orange, and violet pastel marks

Two Passengers, Four Titles

Across four titles, the two passengers in Odilon Redon’s Flower Clouds keep one human scale while the world around them changes.

Dream states5 min read

Abstract oil painting with a dark green central form, an ocher shape, red and blue areas, and sweeping black and yellow lines.

Several Speeds at Once

In Vasily Kandinsky’s Painting with Green Center, color spreads, lines sprint, and the canvas lets each kind of mark keep its own pace.

Dream states7 min read

Pale vertical forms rise above bands of blue and green beneath a cloudy white field.

Suppose the World Began with Ruins

In the sixth sheet of M. K. Čiurlionis’s Creation of the World, a new blue realm resembles an excavation filled with broken structures and unclaimed machines.

Dream states7 min read