Hope

Today I will tell you about the work called 'Hope' by Symbolist painter George Frederic Watts, painted in 1886. When we first look at the work, we have difficulty making a connection with its name. It has a design as if it wanted to express desperation and hopelessness, not hope.


However, the work has one of the best compositions ever about hope. The thin clothes of the female figure in the picture seem to have gotten wet and stuck to her body. We also see him trying to make music, blindfolded, on a globe where he could lose his balance at any moment, with a lyre with only one string left in his hand. We despair in the face of all this we see. When this interesting composition comes together with the foggy and misty mystical atmosphere of the symbolist painting technique, we, as the audience, do not actually think or feel very positive things. Because Watts has hidden the message he wants to give behind a symbolic smoke screen.
Are their clothes wet? Why are her feet bare? Is he cold? This woman, in an atmosphere where we can ask questions such as, is trying to make a melody from the missing musical instrument she has, despite all the negativities she has experienced.
The artist emphasizes that the people who need hope the most are the most hopeless, and they are the ones who cling to hope the most. The female figure in the picture is trying to make music in nothingness with a real and strong hope, despite all the negative conditions she experiences.
Because hope; It allows us to hold on to life in its strongest form at the moments when we feel the most hopeless, the most helpless and the most lonely.

No matter what, remember this picture when you feel most hopeless and helpless. No matter what we experience, let's try to create a melody from a lyre with only one string left. Thank you for reading, stay with art… 🖤