Artist: George Frederic Watts
Title: Hope
Date: 1886
Media: Oil on canvas
Size: 1422 x 1118 mm
Presented to Tate by artist in 1897
I chose this image because it delivers a message that we cannot lose our hope even though we are in an extremity. It is one of Watts’ most unusual images. In the painting, a woman is blindfolded, sitting on the globe, on the world, desperately trying to make music on an instrument, a lyre, of which all the strings are broken except one – she did not give up playing music. The deep meaning of this picture is that we can not lose hope until the last minute although the world was broken by the war, is still full of hatred and suspicious feelings, and we are being tortured by various of illnesses and diseases and have to face the poverty, hanger and greedy. These all relate to my theme “hope”.
This painting has influenced Barack Obama for over a decade. In fact, “the audacity of hope ” was the comments of this painting made by Obama’s former pastor. No other art works have influenced him greatly like this painting.
http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?workid=16034
You have capability as seen in last semesters blogging.
Please get onto this assignment so your workload does not get out of control.
The sooner you do it the sooner we can comment and help you learn
Gina