Hope
Artist: George Frederic Watts
Year Composed: 1886
Artistic Movement: Modernist
Nationality: United Kingdom
Floor Found in Château: Third Garden
Year Composed: 1886
Artistic Movement: Modernist
Nationality: United Kingdom
Floor Found in Château: Third Garden
About the Artwork
Typically, the personification of hope is supposed to be alluring, inviting, and driving, letting audiences feel inspired when viewing works with hope rendered. However, George Frederic Watts' Hope takes a radically different direction. Instead, Watts shows the personification of hope cowering atop a star, blindfolded and holding a lyre that has but one string. Here, the symbolism is closer related to the phrase "hope is not lost", where even if everything else seems clouded, bleak, and unforeseen, hope remains.
About the Artist
Known for painting thoughts, ideas, and allegories, George Frederic Watts was an English painter who captured emotions and feelings within his art. Ultimately, he sought to compose a series of paintings that embodied the essence of the emotions and aspirations within a person's life, encompassing every thought and event within their life cycle. Some of the works to showcase this was his Hope (1886) and Physical Energy (1904).
About the Movement
Hope was composed in the Modernist Age of art. Modernism was a philosophical movement that influenced art during the late stages of the 19th Century and into the 20th (or the later decades of the 1800s into the 1900s). Artists during this time rejected the religious and spiritual themes of the Enlightenment, and Modernists showcased rhetoric of modern society and industrialism. Some of the most famous Modernist artists included Henri Matisse, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Georgia O'Keeffe.
Location of Original Work of Art: Tate Museum, London, United Kingdom
Typically, the personification of hope is supposed to be alluring, inviting, and driving, letting audiences feel inspired when viewing works with hope rendered. However, George Frederic Watts' Hope takes a radically different direction. Instead, Watts shows the personification of hope cowering atop a star, blindfolded and holding a lyre that has but one string. Here, the symbolism is closer related to the phrase "hope is not lost", where even if everything else seems clouded, bleak, and unforeseen, hope remains.
About the Artist
Known for painting thoughts, ideas, and allegories, George Frederic Watts was an English painter who captured emotions and feelings within his art. Ultimately, he sought to compose a series of paintings that embodied the essence of the emotions and aspirations within a person's life, encompassing every thought and event within their life cycle. Some of the works to showcase this was his Hope (1886) and Physical Energy (1904).
About the Movement
Hope was composed in the Modernist Age of art. Modernism was a philosophical movement that influenced art during the late stages of the 19th Century and into the 20th (or the later decades of the 1800s into the 1900s). Artists during this time rejected the religious and spiritual themes of the Enlightenment, and Modernists showcased rhetoric of modern society and industrialism. Some of the most famous Modernist artists included Henri Matisse, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Georgia O'Keeffe.
Location of Original Work of Art: Tate Museum, London, United Kingdom