Entitled “Hope,” the canvas hanging inside London’s Guildhall Art Gallery as part of an exhibition by Victorian painter George Frederic Watts might appear unremarkable to some.
In drab browns and grays on a blue background, it depicts a young blindfolded woman strumming on the last unbroken string of a harp, her ear to the instrument.
Obama’s controversial former pastor Jeremiah Wright invoked the image as a symbol of inspiration during a sermon in Chicago 20 years ago.
The harpist, he preached, “is sitting there in rags … her clothes are tattered as though she had been a victim of Hiroshima… [yet] the woman had the audacity to hope.”
via A painting called ‘Hope’ wins fans as Barack Obama’s inspiration | csmonitor.com