Le Rêve or La Rêve? Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off

The masculine and feminine pronouns in the French language confound me, and there seems to be some confusion about which is proper for “rêve” — i.e., “dream”. Any linguists out there?

We have La Rêve (1931), a painting by Salvador Dali:

And a year later, Le Rêve (1932), a painting by Pablo Picasso:

The latter is owned by … wait for it … Steve Wynn, the Las Vegas “gaming tycoon”, as he is often described. He owns, of course, The Wynn hotel, casino, resort and den of iniquity (I’m guessing at that last bit–I’ve never been there!) where Le Rêve, the show (see post below) is held.

Salvador Dali and Pablo Picasso are both surrealists (well, Picasso is much more than that, but for my purposes here, let’s call him a surrealist). And both were born in Spain, birthplace also of the paso doble. Olé!

And I don’t know why I find this funny, but: In late 2006, Wynn elbowed a hole into Le Rêve (the painting) just after making a deal to sell it for $139 million. I bet that gave him nightmares.