Abstract

The aim of the present paper is to illustrate the representations of the dream in the French painting of the eighteenth century, based on the analysis of a few paintings of Watteau and Fragonard and of some theoretical and critical texts of their time as well. Doing so, the article tries to find an answer to the question whether it is possible to find figurative patterns of the representation of the dream and to establish a typology of the oneiric paintings in the Age of Enlightenment.