Medici Slot Machine Painting
joseph Cornell, Medici Slot Machine, 1942. Assemblage.
The Medici Slot Machine is perhaps Cornell’s most famous example of Assemblage art. It has been created by putting together found objects to create a three dimensional composition. His work often evoked surrealist traits. In this instance the focus is of Piero de Medici of Florence, a Renaissance Prince. The Medici Slot Machine had movable parts and Cornell did this purposefully to tempt the onlooker into interacting with the piece. There are lots of little portraits of both the Prince and others along the sides. They sort of mimic movie stills. At the bottom there is a compass. This arrangement of seemingly unconnected pieces forms a dream like image, both mysterious and fantastical.
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Here a reproduction of Bronzino’s Renaissance portrait of Bia de’ Medici serves as the focal point. Around it, Cornell placed blocks and a scrap of pink ribbon. He may have chosen the image because of.
Mary Ann Caws, Joseph Cornell’s Theater of the Mind: Selected Diaries, Letters, and Files (New York: Thames and Hudson, 2000)
Catherine Corman, Joseph Cornell’s Dreams (Cambridge: Exact Change, 2007)