To Charles Simic there are three kinds of images, and the artistic boxes of Joseph Cornell are the rarer third kind:
First, there are those seen with eyes open in the manner of realists in both art and literature. Then there are images we see with eyes closed. Romantic poets, surrealist, expressionists and everyday dreamers know them. The images Cornell has in his boxes are, however, of the third kind. They partake of both dream and reality, and of something else that doesn’t have a name. They tempt the viewer in two opposite directions. One is to look and admire . . . and the other is to make up stories about what one sees . . . Neither [way] by itself is sufficient. It’s the mingling of the two that makes up the third image.
(Quoted from page 60 of Dime-Store Alchemy: The Art of Joseph Cornell, by Charles Simic. New York Review Book, 1992.)
To see some of Joseph Cornell’s boxes, click here.
For a brief biography of Charles Simic, click here. For images of or relating to Charles Simic, click here.
For a brief biography of Joseph Cornell, click here.
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