"He found his epiphanies in the banal -- in marbles and metal springs and other frugal objects, mingling the visionary aims of French Symbolism with a literalism that is distinctly American. In an exquisite conjunction between fantasy and the real, Cornell found the sublime at the five-and-dime."
Deborah Solomon, Utopia Parkway: The Life and Work of Joseph Cornell, New York 2015, p. 373