Joseph Cornell: Βox Constractions

Cornell described his boxes from the late 1930s into the mid-1940s as “poetic theaters” and “shadow boxes.” Between the late 1940s and 1972 his constructions became “clean and abstract” in their architectural space and celestial references. Around 1953, he resumed making collages to expand upon his themes and subjects. The principle of collage runs throughout Cornell’s entire body of work. Its cohesiveness also owes a great deal to his practice of working in series and “families” that share visual features and associations. Cabinets of Curiosity: Cornell assembled elements in a matrix of metaphors designed to incite wonder, curiosity, and contemplation about the physical and spiritual relationships between man and nature. Cornell expressed his appreciation of curiosity as an intimate pursuit of knowledge and experience.

Medici Princess,
1952-54 Joseph Cornell

Untilted (Cockatoo with Watch Faces)
about 1949; Construction, 16 1/4 x 17 x 4 7/16 in;
The Lindy and Edwin Bergman Collection, Chicago

Toward the Blue Peninsula 1951-52

Ispired by a Emily Dickinson poem (CXXXII) that ends:

It might be easier

To fail—with Land in Sight—

Than gain—My Blue Peninsula—

To perish—of Delight

Tilly Losch, 1935

Setting for a Fairytail (1942)

Made of a cut out Paris illustration where all the windows had been cut out. Under the illustration he put a mirror and the box is closed by a glass panel . The hood in the background is made of real twigs.