A Dream by the Lake - The Last Peace
The deep swampy byous.
Even the air has become moist and lazy.
Beneath the silence lurks an unknown danger.
Frightened horses, wary swans,
Barking hounds.
Indicating the arrival of a large troop.
The calm and peacefulness of the lake will be broken.
The Sleeping Child, wake up
Soon the storm will be coming.
The poor maiden and her lover were separated in the war. But the deep and strong love in her heart was like a light in the darkness, leading her to a journey of finding her lover. Days, months, years passed, she came to a quiet bayou. Surrounded by mists, the sound of frogs and birds song peacefully, as if time seemed as soft and long as if it had stood still. Exhausted, she slowly drifted off to sleep in this mystery place that lies between reality and illusion.
But then the swans by the river are suddenly attacked by hounds and the horses are frightened and flee in panic. The danger is approaching from afar, and there is already a crisis beneath the calm surface of the lake. Wake up! Arise! The fire of war has come to this place.
Combination of three paintings
The Dress Rêves au bord de l'eau printing is assembled from three oil paintings .
American bayou region, calm water, moist air, moss-covered trees, deep green that is almost close to black. In the center of the painting is a young woman lying down under a large tree. The painting`s name is "The Land of Evangeline" and it's used as the background in the printing. It was painted in 1874 by the American artist Joseph Rusling Meeker. It was inspired by the epic poem "Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie "(1847) by Henry Wordsworth Longfellow. The poem was a tragic love story. The protagonist Evangeline and her lover were separated during the Expulsion of the Acadians in North America, and after years of searching for each other, they are finally reunited, but the young man is already dead and Evangeline is soon to die from the shock of his death. They were buried together and finally united in death. Joseph Meeker, joined the Union Navy in the American Civil War and served on gunboats patrolling the Mississippi River. He later became fascinated by the beauty of the bayous and swamps of Louisiana and Mississippi and subsequently settled in Louisiana, where he left a lot of landscape works. For this reason he is also known as the "Louisiana Painter''
The Land of Evangeline
On the side of the print are two oil paintings. The left side is Swan Attacked by a Dog (1740) by the French painter Jean-Baptiste Oudry. On the right side is the horse of King Carl XI of Sweden painted by the Swedish court painter David Klöcker Ehrenstrahl.
Swan Attacked by a Dog and King Carl XI`s horse