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[[picture top left]]
[[caption]]Joseph Cornell, Soap Bubble Set (1936);
collection Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford. [[/caption]]
 
[[caption]] Joseph Cornell, Medici Slot Machine (1942);
collection Mr. and Mrs. Bernard J. Reis, New York;
courtesy the Museum of Modern Art. [[/caption]]
[[picture bottom left]]

nostalgic as a pair of lovers in the "rarefied realms" of Watteau. Insider the lid of the jewel box, which is lined with old dark blue velvet, Cornell has inscribed: "On a moonlight night in the winter of 1835 the carriage of Marie Taglioni was halted by a Russian highwayman, and that enchanting creature commanded to dance for this audience of one upon a panther's skin spread over the snow beneath the stars. From this actuality arose the legend that to keep alive the memory of this adventure so precious to her, Taglioni formed the habit of placing a piece of artificial ice in her jewel casket or dressing table where, melting among the sparkling stones, there was evoked a hint of the atmosphere of the starlit heavens over the ice-covered landscape." The text in light blue on the dark ground, begins and ends with a band of squares like the cubes of ice-a characteristic example of Cornell's accord of form and idea. Among the bluish crystals "melting" in the bottom of the box one glimpses bits of red, yellow, and purple jewels.
The crystal ice cubes and marbles, the mirrors, the liqueur, wine and whisky glasses so often present in his compositions reflect, refract, and intensify the light which fascinates Cornell. Light for him is not so much an optical phenomenon as it is a state of being. He does not reproduce light; he presents it is a state of being. He does not reproduce light; he presents it in itself. This is one of the many ideas of Cornell's which younger generations of Americans have pursued.
Cornell's affinity with Mondrian rests primarily in the purity and subtlety of his formal adjustments-basic horizontals and verticals brought to life through delicate balancing of asymmetric elements. In the spatial dynamism of Mondrian's paintings, which as De Kooning says "keep changing in front of us," the spectator plays no role (except with his eyes) in shifting the forms in space. In Cornell's work, on the other hand, the observer is intended to set certain of the objects into motion, to modify the design. The Dove Cot (1950) can be rolled so that the white balls (the doves) perch or peep out from different openings, and in Cassiopeia No. 3 (c. 1954) the rings and cork ball glide on suspended bars.
The 1936 Soap-Bubble Set, which was included in the historic "Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism" exhibition of that year at the Museum of Modern Art, does not have the mobile asymmetry of the later work, but it has the same kind of formal and evocative consistency. The objects which Cornell assembles into his boxes belong together: the globe of the moon, the cylindrical blocks-two of them with stellar images-the egg in the glass, the white clay pipe for blowing the bubble evoked in the circular forms throughout the composition, and the sweet doll's head (like the later smiling suns). In more recent pieces, light is more dazzling as it penetrates and bounces off the glasses and through the crystal bubbles (marbles); but the character of Cornell's world was already established in the early work: the inviolable magic of fairyland and the simple mystery of light, space, and sea. Although the actual space in his constructions is shallow, the series of planes moving back into depth and repeated in mirrors expands into the endless space of dreams.

Within the consistency of Cornell's objects and forms is an astonishing variety wherein the elements of texture and color play a special role: sparkling glass, light-absorbing cork and clary, blistered paint, crisp metal bars, sand-and-sea-worn shells and weather-silvered wood which keep the rhythm and the presence of the ocean. The background of his sea and sun pieces is usually white, sometimes touched with pale yellow; the corks are often softly color blue or yellow; most of the crystal marbles are clear, but occasionally they have subtle

ARTS MAGAZINE/Sept.-Oct. 1965