Here's another mini cabinet that I hope will give you some joy and amusement ... measuring just 23 high and 13 x 11 cms and weighing as light as a feather ... and inside - another story ...
... open the doors to reveal the story within ...
Hope by George Frederic Watts and assistants -1886
The picture is one of a series of allegorical subjects which Watts intended for a decorative scheme known as the 'House of Life'. Traditionally the figure of Hope is identified by an anchor, but Watts was seeking a fresher, more original approach. He painted blind Hope seated on a globe and playing on a lyre which has all its strings broken except one. She bends her head to listen to the faint music, but her efforts appear forlorn; the overall atmosphere is one of sadness and desolation rather than hope. The picture's sense of melancholy is enhanced by the soft brushwork and the translucent mists that envelop the floating globe.
Inside a glass bubble at the feet of the girl is the familiar face of the great Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud - it was he that emphasized the importance of the unconscious mind, and a theory that the unconscious mind governs behavior to a greater degree than we may suspect. Indeed, the goal of psychoanalysis is to make the unconscious conscious.
So what message do you take from this image of a blindfolded girl sitting on a floating globe playing a tune on her one-stringed broken harp ... ??? ... do you see only sadness and despair - or can you hear a faint tune of hope during this current crisis our globe is facing ...
Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops at all. — Emily Dickinson
... doors may close around us - but hope gives us strength ...
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