ABSTRACT
By 1889, the snow globe had entered the world’s pantheon of objects with a signature combination of three elements: hollow glass, miniature and snow in liquid.1 They pair the visual contradictions of motion and stasis, solid and liquid, inside and outside, reality and imagination, before and after. Unbound, these dramatic polarities could confuse or even repel the viewer. But combined in the snow globe, they engage the imagination in an encounter with a safely distant tableau that demands negotiation of its identity and its possibilities. Each of the globe’s three elements constrains and contextualizes the others. In this careful balance hangs the snow globe’s distinctive and enduring appeal: that balance creates the conditions in which wonder ourishes.
