Because Hope was a work that was impossible to read using the traditional interpretation of symbolism in painting, Watts intentionally left its meaning ambiguous, and the bleaker interpretations were almost immediately challenged by Christian thinkers following its exhibition.
Scottish theologian P. T. Forsyth felt that Hope was a companion to Watts's 1885 Mammon in depicting false gods and the perils awaiting those who attempted to follow them in the absence of faith.
Forsyth wrote that the image conveyed the absence of faith, illustrated that a loss of faith placed too great a burden on hope alone, and that the message of the painting was that in the godless world created by technology, Hope has intentionally blinded herself and listens only to that music she can make on her own.
Forsyth's interpretation, that the central figure is not herself a personification of hope but a representation of humanity too horrified at the world it has created to look at it, instead deliberately blinding itself and living in hope, became popular with other theologians.

Watts's supporters claimed that the image of Hope had near-miraculous redemptive powers.
In his 1908 work Sermons in Art by the Great Masters, Stoke Newington Presbyterian minister James Burns wrote of a woman who had been walking to the Thames with the intention of suicide, but had passed the image of Hope in a shop window and been so inspired by the sight of it that rather than attempting suicide she instead emigrated to Australia.
In 1918 Watts's biographer Henry William Shrewsbury wrote of "a poor girl, character-broken and heart-broken, wandering about the streets of London with a growing feeling that nothing remained but to destroy herself" seeing a photograph of Hope, using the last of her money to buy the photograph, until "looking at it every day, the message sank into her soul, and she fought her way back to a life of purity and honour".
When music hall star Marie Lloyd died in 1922 after a life beset with alcohol, illness and depression, it was noted that among her possessions was a print of Hope; one reporter observed that among her other possessions, it looked "like a good deed in a naughty world".

Watts himself was ambivalent when questioned about the religious significance of the image, saying that "I made Hope blind so expecting nothing", although after his death his widow Mary Seton Watts wrote that the message of the painting was that "Faith must be the companion of Hope.
Faith is the substance, the assurance of things hoped for, because it is the evidence of things not seen."
Malcolm Warner, curator of the Yale Center for British Art, interpreted the work differently, writing in 1996 that "the quiet sound of the lyre's single string is all that is left of the full music of religious faith; those who still listen are blindfolded in the sense that, even if real reasons for Hope exist, they cannot see them; Hope remains a virtue, but in the age of scientific materialism a weak and ambiguous one".

In 1900, shortly before his death, Watts again painted the character in Faith, Hope and Charity (now in the Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin).
This shows her smiling and with her lyre restrung, working with Love to persuade a blood-stained Faith to sheath her sword; Tromans writes that "the message would appear to be that if Faith is going to resume her importance for humanity ... it will have to be in a role deferential to the more constant Love and Hope."
Because Hope was a work that was impossible to read using the traditional interpretation of symbolism in painting, Watts intentionally left its meaning ambiguous, and the bleaker interpretations were almost immediately challenged by Christian thinkers following its exhibition. Scottish theologian P. T. Forsyth felt that Hope was a companion to Watts's 1885 Mammon in depicting false gods and the perils awaiting those who attempted to follow them in the absence of faith. Forsyth wrote that the image conveyed the absence of faith, illustrated that a loss of faith placed too great a burden on hope alone, and that the message of the painting was that in the godless world created by technology, Hope has intentionally blinded herself and listens only to that music she can make on her own. Forsyth's interpretation, that the central figure is not herself a personification of hope but a representation of humanity too horrified at the world it has created to look at it, instead deliberately blinding itself and living in hope, became popular with other theologians.
Watts's supporters claimed that the image of Hope had near-miraculous redemptive powers. In his 1908 work Sermons in Art by the Great Masters, Stoke Newington Presbyterian minister James Burns wrote of a woman who had been walking to the Thames with the intention of suicide, but had passed the image of Hope in a shop window and been so inspired by the sight of it that rather than attempting suicide she instead emigrated to Australia. In 1918 Watts's biographer Henry William Shrewsbury wrote of "a poor girl, character-broken and heart-broken, wandering about the streets of London with a growing feeling that nothing remained but to destroy herself" seeing a photograph of Hope, using the last of her money to buy the photograph, until "looking at it every day, the message sank into her soul, and she fought her way back to a life of purity and honour". When music hall star Marie Lloyd died in 1922 after a life beset with alcohol, illness and depression, it was noted that among her possessions was a print of Hope; one reporter observed that among her other possessions, it looked "like a good deed in a naughty world".
Watts himself was ambivalent when questioned about the religious significance of the image, saying that "I made Hope blind so expecting nothing", although after his death his widow Mary Seton Watts wrote that the message of the painting was that "Faith must be the companion of Hope. Faith is the substance, the assurance of things hoped for, because it is the evidence of things not seen." Malcolm Warner, curator of the Yale Center for British Art, interpreted the work differently, writing in 1996 that "the quiet sound of the lyre's single string is all that is left of the full music of religious faith; those who still listen are blindfolded in the sense that, even if real reasons for Hope exist, they cannot see them; Hope remains a virtue, but in the age of scientific materialism a weak and ambiguous one".
In 1900, shortly before his death, Watts again painted the character in Faith, Hope and Charity (now in the Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin). This shows her smiling and with her lyre restrung, working with Love to persuade a blood-stained Faith to sheath her sword; Tromans writes that "the message would appear to be that if Faith is going to resume her importance for humanity ... it will have to be in a role deferential to the more constant Love and Hope."
Hope (painting)