Eyes wide shut

Sleep takes many shapes in art, whether sensual or drunken, deathly or full of nightmares, but it is rarely peaceful. Even slumbering babies can convey anxiety

- Claudia Pritchard

WITH one hand flung above her head, the other in her lap, the sleeping figure in Dod Procter’s Morning has a monumental quality. The painting’s stone-grey tones and simple solidity embody both classicism and bold modernity and, when it was displayed at the Royal Academy (RA) Summer Exhibition nearly 100 years ago, it caused a sensation. Voted picture of the year in the 1927 show, it was bought by the Daily Mail and given to the nation.

There followed a rush of excitement when the painting was trundled around 23 British galleries, viewed by thousands and shipped to New York for more adulation before coming to rest, peacefully, at Tate Modern. But the sleeper is not always such a tranquil presence in art as Morning’s 16-year-old model, Cissie Barnes, a Cornish fisherman’s daughter —indeed, sleep appears as a state almost as varied and complex as the waking hours.

Sleeping and dreaming seem inextricable, a handy device for the artist who sets out to show several things happening at once, but also for religion, signalling a deity’s intentions. Perhaps none is as promising as Jacob’s ladder, his dreamt stairway to Heaven. On the west façade of Bath Abbey, the building’s strong vertical lines lend themselves to sculpted rungs that soar straight to the sky, whereas in William Blake’s depiction of Jacob, the route to eternal life is a whirling spiral, thronging with graceful angels bearing pitchers, dishes and scrolls. The destination is alluring, if your head for heights will let you tackle the steps that rise between the stars, in mid air.