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an excerpt from:
Joseph Cornell's Dreams
by Joseph Cornell
[Undated]
unusually… rewarding dream…
the little girl who followed me home on subway…
— was watching me work at table
she came out again + then I went into the city to take her home.
one saw the city through her eyes — freshly beautiful. at a point close to the river she got off + instead of an expected drab dwelling she lived in… a place all glass… overlooking the river…
next to her rooms a large gallery-like place the walls lined with filled bookshelves. I guessed + checked with the man in charge that it was a research service for artists. He said yes it was.
[Undated]
a large R.R. station like Grand Central or the old Penn — it was dark as night in shadows.
March 3, 1944
Dream of going back to Nyack
seeing school as the palace I made of mirrors it was like the Plaza only seen as a front facade
resplendent in the sunlight.
May 11, 1947
asleep in chair by stove —
dreamed of opening window (at corresponding late hour)
window for icebox + seeing in basement of neighbors house 2 pet cockatoos in cage dimly illuminated (house dark)
September 25, 1951
dreamed of a large tome printed on slightly yellow paper…
— perusing in detail the plates — one a kind of white magic item, as of fanciful figures of an ancient court, oriental figures, men with elongated, bald, heads in bleached kind of technique, stipple effect, one of the figures repeated smaller in background
another plate, only one in color as though of a tree in Chinese art its slender branches reaching into the water & at the same time (as well as can be remembered) covering the page as decor…
— another page (the most emotional) a phot. or academic type painting of a long line end to end of people as of a military formation or street crowd, rural atmosphere…
top of picture the sky.
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