Death's Eye

If the eye is witness to death, the artist is society's witnesses to mortality. Escher explicitly represented this in his "Eye" (1946), which recalls the probing sight of the investigator. But what do we get when we turn this gaze back on ourselves? An image of our own death, no doubt.

The skull is wrapped in the eyeball like a furtive eye wrapped in a curtain. It cannot help looking, but perhaps will see more than it has bargained for.

 

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