Soap Bubble Set

Joseph Cornell’s box constructions present highly personal reflections on art, nature, history, and memory through the unexpected juxtaposition of found objects and printed material. Here he included glasses, pipes, and round disks to recollect the youthful activity of blowing soap bubbles. Their placement in front of a diagram of the Copernican planetary system, however, suggests a more universal significance. Cornell produced other Soap Bubble Set boxes, and he later recalled about them that “Shadow boxes become poetic theatres or settings wherein are metamorphosed the elements of a childhood pastime. The fragile shimmering globules become the shimmering but more enduring planets—a connotation of moon and tides.”