What it is
A blind street musician rests by the road with a concertina in her lap, a younger girl pressed against her, as a storm clears and a double rainbow opens over the fields.
What it represents
Perception beyond sight. The younger girl looks up at the rainbow; the blind girl turns her face toward the warmth she can feel on her skin.
The symbolism
The rainbow is the old sign of a promise after a flood. A butterfly rests on her shawl, one more small grace she cannot see and does not need to. The painting suggests that comfort is felt before it is understood.
Poems and letters beside it
poem
I Measure Every Grief I Meet
Emily Dickinson (c. 1862)
A blind girl in a landscape of brilliant colour she cannot see, the anxiety of experiencing a world whose beauty you can feel but not confirm.
