Daniëls droom van de vier dieren 1585

This is Johannes or Lucas van Doetechum's engraving, "Daniel's Dream of the Four Beasts," currently housed in the Rijksmuseum. The image, rendered in monochromatic detail, draws us into a space where the earthly and the ethereal meet. Note how the composition uses a sharp perspectival framework that is destabilized by the dreamscape. A sleeping Daniel is at the center, canopied by a bed curtain that morphs into a cloud teeming with symbolic beasts. The beasts are not merely illustrative elements; their arrangement and integration into the cloud suggest a fluid boundary between conscious and unconscious states. The foreground, with its patterned floor, gives way to a background filled with symbolic imagery of the dream. The high level of detail creates a visual tension, inviting us to decode the semiotic interplay between Daniel's dream and the structure of his waking world. This piece functions as a philosophical inquiry into the nature of perception and reality. It challenges fixed meanings, inviting ongoing interpretation.