Art works often blur the lines between reality and fantasy. They are based on genuine feelings, experience, and perception of the artist, but at the same time, go beyond them, opening up new boundaries and ideas to the audience. Marc Chagall’s Paris Through the Window and Max Ernst’s Two Children Are Threatened by a Nightingale are examples of works where the tension between reality and fantasy persists. Although fiction and real life can be seen as opposite, these paintings represent their interweaving.
Fantasies can help individuals to avoid reality or cope with it. Chagall’s painting, at first glance, conveys the day in Paris – here, one can see the houses and the Eiffel Tower. However, viewers can then notice the unrealistic nature of the cat, the man with two faces, the upside-down train, and other unusual elements. As an emigrant, the artist tried to cope with a new life reality and the impossibility of returning home. For example, an inverted train is the absence of a road to the homeland, and a person with two faces is throwing between a new life and the past. As a result, Paris Through the Window presents the tension between reality and fantasy to accept the artist’s real life.
Ernst conveys the tension of fantasy-reality in a different way. Two Children Are Threatened by a Nightingale resulted from a dream seen by the artist during his illness. The picture demonstrates how sometimes absurd and frightening the world of dreams can be, and a return to reality, where a person has control, is essential. As a result, the piece reminds people of the complexity and frequent irrationality of fantasies to appreciate the existing reality.
Thus, fantasy and reality can be intertwined in works of art and give the audience different experiences when studying them. Artists’ ways of combining illusion and reality and blurring their boundaries differ depending on their goals. As the examples discussed in the paper demonstrate, the tension between reality and fantasy can be a way of accepting an altered reality or emphasizing its importance and resilience compared to illusions.