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Joseph Cornell's Dreams
A selection of dream epiphanies and reveries from Joseph Cornell's voluminous diaries
Joseph Cornell is well known for the oneiric quality of his art and films. Many have tried, often in vain, to put into words the strange power of his boxes―toy-like constructions whose playfulness and humor are anchored in a profound melancholy and loneliness. “Slot machines of visions,” said Octavio Paz. Cornell himself is said to have enjoyed children's responses to his work; perhaps because nothing prepares one better for viewing a Cornell box than having an unbiased mind. Catherine Corman has combed through the voluminous diaries that Cornell kept throughout his life, now in the care of the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art, in search of the artist's own dreams. What she found are brief flashes of images, and short, enigmatic narratives of illumination―the verbal equivalent of Cornell boxes. In 1993, Mary Ann Caws edited a large portion of Cornell's diaries for publication by Thames & Hudson, an invaluable sourcebook for Cornell studies. This new, shorter volume is a poetic addition to that literature, equally indispensible to those interested in Cornell as it contains previously unpublished writings, but also because it is as intriguing and mysterious to the uninitiated as the magical boxes themselves.
Joseph Cornell is well known for the oneiric quality of his art and films. Many have tried, often in vain, to put into words the strange power of his boxes―toy-like constructions whose playfulness and humor are anchored in a profound melancholy and loneliness. “Slot machines of visions,” said Octavio Paz. Cornell himself is said to have enjoyed children's responses to his work; perhaps because nothing prepares one better for viewing a Cornell box than having an unbiased mind. Catherine Corman has combed through the voluminous diaries that Cornell kept throughout his life, now in the care of the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art, in search of the artist's own dreams. What she found are brief flashes of images, and short, enigmatic narratives of illumination―the verbal equivalent of Cornell boxes. In 1993, Mary Ann Caws edited a large portion of Cornell's diaries for publication by Thames & Hudson, an invaluable sourcebook for Cornell studies. This new, shorter volume is a poetic addition to that literature, equally indispensible to those interested in Cornell as it contains previously unpublished writings, but also because it is as intriguing and mysterious to the uninitiated as the magical boxes themselves.
143 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2006
About the author
Joseph Cornell
38 books11 followersJoseph Cornell was a visual artist and avant-garde experimental filmmaker most remembered for his techniques of assemblage, including shadow boxes, collage, and found-film montage. His works have been exhibited in major retrospectives at starting with the Pasadena Art Museum (now the Norton Simon Museum) in December 1966, and followed by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, MoMA, SFMoMA, and the Royal Academy of Arts in London. Collections remain at those in addition to the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Art Institute of Chicago, Whitney Museum of American Art, Tate Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art, and others.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
December 9, 2008
Life-as-dream. Abstract constructions.
December 22, 2009
This is the secret, cryptic Cornell, before he miraculously transformed his interior imaginings into mysterious, yet universally accessible, art. It’s a book lovingly designed (by Roger Corman’s daughter) to appear Cornellian – printed in blue ink and minimized to pure evocative essence – its cover adorned by one of his simple late collages, a collage with the child-like temerity to be almost tacky in its color scheme, but the more authentic and wonderful for it.
There is no artist more “poetic”, in the High Romantic sense, than Cornell, with his box assemblages and paper collages which are themselves collages of his deepest most fleeting sensations of subtle euphorias and emotional correspondences as embodied in dime store bric-a-brac and mass produced imagery. Cornell had the great good sense of extreme refinement that stopped just this side of the thoroughly obscure, where mystery reigns in subtle humility. I’m sure his lifelong exploration of his own dreams taught him many lessons in how to maintain this sense. Dreams, at least good dreams, are by their very nature self-contained, like scenic overlooks before and after brief blackouts, which is to say they are distinct and discrete experiences off the beaten path of waking life, but connected to it by often obscure paths and subterranean roots. Good dreams are often glaringly obscure, both vexingly subtle and bracingly potent, and to the true dream explorer can be more fascinating than life itself, but, and this is the clincher, if one follows these dreams (by whatever means so long as one doesn’t, or can’t, interpret the life out of it) back into waking consciousness, life itself can be transformed and made more fascinating. For Cornell life and dreams were a strange continuity, informing each other as equals, and this book provides the proof for this; though previous knowledge of him and his works is required. This is not an introductory book, or an initial portal into his world, but more like a previously unknown door – behind a sofa, in an attic, beneath a stairway – that one comes across in a well known room while dreaming; a favorite dream-type of mine.
This is a dream-engendering book; not only because of the striking, concentrated imagery:
but also in the obvious extreme alertness, and inner quiet, required to access the fleeting imagery and subtle sensations in evidence throughout this book. To read the results of this alertness actually helps one develop the same alertness and inner quiet on his/her own. It’s an instruction manual without declaring itself as such, and without the reader even trying.
Also in here is Cornell the spontaneous poet, the image condenser into wonderful word concentrates:
And, finally, there is Cornell, near the very end of his life, getting dream premonitions of his own peaceful death:
There is no artist more “poetic”, in the High Romantic sense, than Cornell, with his box assemblages and paper collages which are themselves collages of his deepest most fleeting sensations of subtle euphorias and emotional correspondences as embodied in dime store bric-a-brac and mass produced imagery. Cornell had the great good sense of extreme refinement that stopped just this side of the thoroughly obscure, where mystery reigns in subtle humility. I’m sure his lifelong exploration of his own dreams taught him many lessons in how to maintain this sense. Dreams, at least good dreams, are by their very nature self-contained, like scenic overlooks before and after brief blackouts, which is to say they are distinct and discrete experiences off the beaten path of waking life, but connected to it by often obscure paths and subterranean roots. Good dreams are often glaringly obscure, both vexingly subtle and bracingly potent, and to the true dream explorer can be more fascinating than life itself, but, and this is the clincher, if one follows these dreams (by whatever means so long as one doesn’t, or can’t, interpret the life out of it) back into waking consciousness, life itself can be transformed and made more fascinating. For Cornell life and dreams were a strange continuity, informing each other as equals, and this book provides the proof for this; though previous knowledge of him and his works is required. This is not an introductory book, or an initial portal into his world, but more like a previously unknown door – behind a sofa, in an attic, beneath a stairway – that one comes across in a well known room while dreaming; a favorite dream-type of mine.
This is a dream-engendering book; not only because of the striking, concentrated imagery:
licking a knife with icing on it outside on a veranda
but also in the obvious extreme alertness, and inner quiet, required to access the fleeting imagery and subtle sensations in evidence throughout this book. To read the results of this alertness actually helps one develop the same alertness and inner quiet on his/her own. It’s an instruction manual without declaring itself as such, and without the reader even trying.
Also in here is Cornell the spontaneous poet, the image condenser into wonderful word concentrates:
7 crows from N. to S. over the bkyds.
helter-skeltering in rapid flight sent on what portentous
purpose? Raucous on the raw March air…
And, finally, there is Cornell, near the very end of his life, getting dream premonitions of his own peaceful death:
I pushed the strange underwater craft away with pole as it approached then on the water with no apparent support hurried away.
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April 18, 2022weird dream havers unite <3
September 15, 2024
Interesting but I was sort of torn by what was missing. A series of recollected dreams which actually only takes up about 30 pages (if reformatted to be continuous). In total about 100 dreams recalled. The introduction mentions that Cornell's journals went on for about 30,000 pages and had about 500 dreams recorded. Why only this meager selection? Why not more of the journal itself? I was left wanting more in a way that reflected poorly on this rather tiny volume.
May 12, 2024
“He was a custodian of things too delicate for this world.”
what a fascinating mind. “cornellian unreality”, the way that Joseph Cornell views waking and unwaking life, is unlike anything i’ve read from Freud or seen from other psychoanalytical/surreal work. while a multitude of the dreams in this collection are mere fragments and words barely strung together, the pure atmosphere Cornell is able to conjure and create is unimaginable. his lifestyle, philosophy, and work all mirror the surrealist mindset, which is probably why i was drawn to this book in the first place, but somehow Cornell transcends and pivots the understanding of surrealism away from the simple notion of the subconscious and what was beyond real. as the appendix so puts it, “Cornell was interested in teasing out what barely existed, what was nearly transparent.” a master of the times
what a fascinating mind. “cornellian unreality”, the way that Joseph Cornell views waking and unwaking life, is unlike anything i’ve read from Freud or seen from other psychoanalytical/surreal work. while a multitude of the dreams in this collection are mere fragments and words barely strung together, the pure atmosphere Cornell is able to conjure and create is unimaginable. his lifestyle, philosophy, and work all mirror the surrealist mindset, which is probably why i was drawn to this book in the first place, but somehow Cornell transcends and pivots the understanding of surrealism away from the simple notion of the subconscious and what was beyond real. as the appendix so puts it, “Cornell was interested in teasing out what barely existed, what was nearly transparent.” a master of the times
October 17, 2008
What? I paid for this?
Seriously though, this is a dried-out turd on a bad stretch of road. It barely qualifies as a book. There is more empty space than words. And the kicker is that it's advertised as having 115 dreams—the supposed creme de la creme of some 500 pages of dream journals—and this is what you get:
*
October 18, 1971
dreamed of papers...
dreams of limitation or immed. memory
*
December 26, 1966
Suzy B. treading glowing cinder in dream
*
March 23, 1963
child with chick in dream world
—So if I don't seem as ridiculously enthusiastic about this tripe as other people, it's because this collection doesn't shed any new light on Cornell's art. There just isn't anything substantial here. I've farted more interesting ideas! You have too. More interesting than this:
*
May 20, 1961
dream in night — childhood obsession to find Brooks
house — then a trench dug across front yard
—And why do so many people give jumbled unpublishable crap the status of poetry? "Oh, well, this Banana Nut Muffin recipe didn't work at all! It must be poetry!" This book is NOT poetry.
Seriously though, this is a dried-out turd on a bad stretch of road. It barely qualifies as a book. There is more empty space than words. And the kicker is that it's advertised as having 115 dreams—the supposed creme de la creme of some 500 pages of dream journals—and this is what you get:
*
October 18, 1971
dreamed of papers...
dreams of limitation or immed. memory
*
December 26, 1966
Suzy B. treading glowing cinder in dream
*
March 23, 1963
child with chick in dream world
—So if I don't seem as ridiculously enthusiastic about this tripe as other people, it's because this collection doesn't shed any new light on Cornell's art. There just isn't anything substantial here. I've farted more interesting ideas! You have too. More interesting than this:
*
May 20, 1961
dream in night — childhood obsession to find Brooks
house — then a trench dug across front yard
—And why do so many people give jumbled unpublishable crap the status of poetry? "Oh, well, this Banana Nut Muffin recipe didn't work at all! It must be poetry!" This book is NOT poetry.
January 20, 2021
As someone deeply invested in dream journals as a literary form as well as well as a big fan of Cornell’s art, I was very intrigued to read his dreams. This is, however, a deeply disappointing book.
The dreams themselves are not only excruciatingly banal, but they are so sparse and ephemeral in their writing style that one wonders what the criteria was for their inclusion. Both the introduction and appendices seem to suggest that this group of dreams was selected from hundreds more, and the editor hails them as visionary and transformative for Cornell in a manner completely not backed up by the dreams they chose to include. It would be interesting to see what dreams Cornell himself would have chosen to include, but clearly Catherine Forman’s choice of what dreams best reflected Cornell’s work was a letdown.
The dreams themselves are not only excruciatingly banal, but they are so sparse and ephemeral in their writing style that one wonders what the criteria was for their inclusion. Both the introduction and appendices seem to suggest that this group of dreams was selected from hundreds more, and the editor hails them as visionary and transformative for Cornell in a manner completely not backed up by the dreams they chose to include. It would be interesting to see what dreams Cornell himself would have chosen to include, but clearly Catherine Forman’s choice of what dreams best reflected Cornell’s work was a letdown.
December 21, 2012
March 8, 1967
dream of pulling out brass chaining from clutter in bedroom closet + later on lawn
seeing Eisenhower smiling at me
(And if such pleasures aren't enough for you, this beautiful little book is printed in blue ink.)
dream of pulling out brass chaining from clutter in bedroom closet + later on lawn
seeing Eisenhower smiling at me
(And if such pleasures aren't enough for you, this beautiful little book is printed in blue ink.)
Want to Read
July 4, 2008Thanks Noran, I'm paying attention.
February 28, 2009
fragmented recordings of an artist's dreams. they sort of turn into weird poems if you're in the right mindset.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews