Joseph Cornell's Boxes

'By collecting and carefully juxtaposing found objects in small, glass-front boxes, Cornell created visual poems in which surface, form, texture, and light play together. Using things we can see, Cornell made boxes about things we cannot see: ideas, memories, fantasies, and dreams.
He was a kind of magician, turning everyday objects into mysterious treasures. In Homage to the Romantic Ballet, plastic ice cubes become jewels when set in a velvet-lined box, souvenirs of a famous ballerina's midnight performance on the frozen Russian steppe. A small glass jar filled with colored sand is transformed into powdered gold from a Mayan temple, carefully preserved in Cornell's Museum.
A symbolist, Cornell used the found materials that inhabit his boxes—paper birds, clay pipes, clock springs, balls, and rings—to hint at abstract ideas. A metal spring from a discarded wind-up clock may evoke the passage of time; a ball might represent a planet or the luck associated with playing a game. Although his constructions are enveloped in nostalgia—the longing for something that happened long ago and far away—their appearance is thoroughly modern.'

http://www.josephcornellbox.com/boxes.htm