‘Blow, blow, little breeze, And Conrad’s hat seize.’ 1920

Curator: I'm instantly transported. This illustration feels like a whisper of a half-remembered dream. Is it a fever dream, or something altogether more pleasant? Editor: I find it whimsical. The artwork is Arthur Rackham’s "’Blow, blow, little breeze, And Conrad’s hat seize.’" created around 1920 using watercolor, pen and ink. What stands out to you symbollically? Curator: That swirling hair, almost Medusa-like, but golden and wild – it speaks of potent, untamed femininity. She’s a wood nymph combing her locks, while a gust tries to snatch a man’s hat, and geese flee through the sky as well? The image just tickles my brain with possibility. It is about childhood and memories I've never actually had! Editor: Rackham frequently taps into those older mythologies, but softens them for a Edwardian audience, I see the geese almost as ancestral souls guided into the future as if a collective consciousness between the divine and the earthly plane, a reminder that stories echo through us across time. The lost hat adds this comedic relief almost like the whims of fate in the wind's control. Curator: That's a thought, this man who looses his hat represents us humans in Rackham's work! Yes it does remind us our hat won't stick to our heads. It suggests an acceptance. Do you find a duality between line and wash within this art? Editor: Exactly! Rackham juxtaposes this delicate watercolor and almost child-like sketch pen drawing—which mirrors life’s dualities and oppositions, yet the whole of each moment must be welcomed: The mundane coexists with the ethereal. Beauty holds strangeness, which feels truthful about the folklore Rackham loved to reinterpret. It’s a balanced composition for chaos, isn't it? Curator: Absolutely. A dance between form and the fleeting. Editor: Perhaps, it's about how memories and myth blur? Everything exists simultaneously—gone yet somehow vividly present. Thank you for being the muse for this moment with Rackham, truly!