A painting inside a photograph
The interaction between nature and the psyche.
In the everyday figures, colors, lights, and shadows that we perceive, is there a pure consciousness behind these elements, filtered through our psychic interpretation? Or, is it our psychic mind using these mundane occurrences to reveal the unconscious, with the imagery of figures, colors, lights, and shadows emerging only after being processed by our conscious mind? This question arose after taking some photos one evening inside Jose's car.
The shadows of the leaves from the tree in front of me overlap with the light of a distant bulb, casting intricate patterns on the glass of the car's front window. After a few moments of contemplating the movement of the lights, I wondered if this beautiful interplay of colors and contrasting light could evoke the human psyche, prompting a search for answers. It invites us to explore and interpret different figures that reveal aspects of our unconscious interests based on what our eyes are drawn to within an image.
In this instance, I saw a painting within a photograph. Initially, I was captivated by the atmospheric contrast of the green hues, but my gaze soon fixed on the serious and empowering face of a man. The light illuminated his face on the right side, accentuating his long nose, while a crown of yellow-tinted flowers rested above his left eyebrow. My brain easily recognized these figures; my eyes seemed instinctively drawn to seek them out. This prompted me to question what part of me felt such a profound visual connection and emotional resonance with what I was witnessing. To better understand the relationship between the image itself and my interpretation of it, I allowed my body to respond as well. A cold sensation in my stomach led me to experience the notion of witnessing a dream before my eyes, a feeling of longing for a memory that had suddenly resurfaced after years of being buried.
The man's gaze amid the shadows transcended the photograph; it became a memory and sensation, triggered by the simple shapes formed through the interaction of light and dark. José sat next to me during this internal process. After I showed him the photo, I realized that his eyes were drawn to something entirely different. He remarked, “I love this photo; it looks like a floor. Can you see it? The shadows on the floor are from the tree above, and you can make out some branches and flowers. The path seems to lead in that direction.” It took me a moment, but after his description, it was as if my eyes could only perceive his interpretation instead of mine.
I then showed him another image. He rotated it 180 degrees and said, “Here you can see it even better. The shadow reflects on the old blue tiles, and you can even see the division between them and their texture.” I, too, began to see it clearly. From a different angle, one could discern an ocean nearby and how the light danced on its surface.
When I rotated the image back, all I saw were faces. I told him, “I don’t know why, but I see you.” I traced his face with my finger on the phone screen. Although I didn’t mention it, I could see a second face overlapping his; it appeared to have dark glasses obscuring its eyes. Interestingly, this second face felt more irrelevant. Despite the shadows making it more pronounced, the essence of color surrounding the first face imbued it with grace and beauty, making it more pleasing to the eye.
After I shared this with him, he was astonished, recognizing himself just as clearly. He couldn’t believe I had been able to dissect all those shapes and find something uniquely distinctive. Admittedly, it didn’t look precisely like him; it resembled a painting where the anatomy and proportions were slightly distorted, yet the expression conveyed all the nuances of his features.
At first glance, we both saw something different: I perceived people, while he envisioned landscapes within landscapes. Was something speaking to us through these images, or were we choosing to see these things without fully understanding why?
Written on September 29th, 2024