(sorry if I'm being silly, I'm a noob in all things arts and literature)
I was reading some stuff and realized that, when hope is the matter, the symbols are usually variations of these: nature awakening (flowers blooming, birds singing...), sunrise, sun coming from behind clouds, illuminated subject in a dark ambient.
As a mental exercise, I tried to remember/think of other images that are used or could be used to convey hope, but I can't think of any.
Have you ever written or read anything that uses other symbols to convey similar feelings as the images mentioned?
I think I see these more as 'motifs that are used a lot' instead of seeing them as natural symbols of renewal because I live in a place that has no spring, only summer and winter. Flowers are around anytime, depending on what plants are close to you, and trees don't lose their folliage. I've never actually experienced how the transition from winter to spring feels like, so the association is naturally lost on me, other than being code for 'hope', 'new life' etc
Funny enough that's exactly what I'm talking about. Even though you don't have personal associations between those things, being exposed to these symbols has created an association between the two, such that you recognize flowers as symbolically hopeful without associating flowers with renewal
It's undoubtedly weaker, though. Instead of a feeling, it's simply conceptual.
There's not a lot of representation of local symbols where I live, so I don't usually associate with a lot of it. But recently I saw a very simple painting of a cashew tree full of beautiful red fruit (they're native of where I'm from) by the sea side and it made me feel so happy and cozy! No european or american painting ever made me feel like that before, and I doubt anyone from those places would feel as I did when seeing it.
And now that I think about flowers, I realized that most flowers we have here are from fruit trees. While seeing them don't make me feel "new life", they do make me feel that I'm expecting something good in the immediate future, a delicious fruit in the weeks to come 😋
I guess the lesson to take here is to explore the world immediately around you, that will create the strongest bonds with the art if your objective is to connect to the people around you
I think that's a great takeaway. As you've pointed out, there are very few symbols that are truly universal because the associations people have are determined by their environment, culture and so on. I would say also that if you are a writer or an artist of any kind you have the power to create those associations. A lot of powerful art is created through an symbols that a viewer/reader may not have expected or even thought of