In a painting in which everything has become rounded and mangled, the rectangle of the mirror stands out. By resisting the general sense of wear and degradation, its very shape implies the adoption of a particular stance, which it clearly signals by reproducing a reflection that bears no relation to external reality. Having been spirited away, Dyer's face is reflected here in what seems to be a magnifying glass. But this man who expands in all directions has no chance of seeing himself from the side, even from the corner of his eye. And in any case he no longer has an eye. The intense blue of the background confirms the disharmony between what we can see of the model and what he can see of himself. The mirror does not lie. It is more like another painting than a mirror, producing an alternative image, not a reflection. The dream of a portrait. Or the battered portrait of a dream. It is almost like one of those profiles that one sees on medallions painted against a pure blue sky: the serene and emblematic image of humanity as conceived at the time of the Renaissance. The resemblance isn't close: something disastrous seems to have happened in the meantime. Not much, really, but a disaster none the less. A halo of light forms a circle on the ground. The regularity of the shape exposes it all as something staged, the careful calibration of a projector. Beyond the area that it circumscribes the space remains ill defined, its limits vague. It has something of an arena about it, or a circus ring, a place appropriate to a story that keeps on going round and round until all its participants are exhausted. The darkness isolates it from the rest of the world. In his dizziness, can this man really ignore the fact that it is the earth itself that is turning beneath his feet? It is a fairly derisory world from this point of view. Here is a man reduced to shreds on this planet of ours. And the sky retains its icy composure. Excerpted from How to Look at a Painting by Francoise Barbe-Gall All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
