Veiled Faces

This may be the most controversial suggestion because it has been proposed by many lay experts before and denounced by the academics every time as foolish and mistaken. Certainly, there have been some outlandish claims but to dismiss all of them, some of them highly important, is equally foolish. This is the truth: under the apparent surface of many great paintings, especially landscapes, is a hidden face. Sometimes it is the artist’s, sometimes an admired poet’s or, as in most instances, still anonymous. Academics comment in disagreement “that you can see what you want to see” but the self-evident examples shown here make that response untenable. Practising artists, however, when shown these examples have unanimously agreed with our perception, many with comments like “That’s how an artist thinks.”

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Michelangelo’s Last Judgment is the preeminent example. Scores of figures around the altar-wall, when seen together from a distance, resemble the unmistakeable profile of Michelangelo’s poetic hero, Dante Alighieri.....with Christ in the center of Dante’s brain. This was first suggested by a Venezuelan diplomat in 1951 and has been ignored with few exceptions ever since. Charles Tolnay, a well-known expert on Michelangelo, last cited it in a note in 1960.{ref1} For the next half-century no book or article on Michelangelo ever mentioned it. I brought the observation back to the attention of the art world, with additional support, in the pages of The Art Newspaper in 2007. It was met with a deafening silence. Nevertheless, what you need to know is that hundreds of subsequent artists were inspired by the presence of Dante’s profile in the Sistine Chapel. Look at it in a book. Go see it yourself in Rome. It is the single most important visual illusion in the history of art.

The examples here all come with supporting evidence. It is not just that the “faces” look like a face but the “face” has meaning. All scenes in true art are ideas in the artist’s mind so the instability with which an image can change from an apparent scene of nature to a human head beautifully conveys the evanescence and constant mutability of human thoughts. After you train your eyes with the examples here, you will get more enjoyment out of a museum than you ever had before. Interpreting art becomes fun.

The evidence for the illusion in Michelangelo’s Last Judgment is laid out in abundant detail in the essay “Michelangelo’s Art Through Michelangelo’s Eyes.” If you have the time – and it does not take long – read it. It explains not just Michelangelo’s methods but the fundamentals – explained here in a different way – of all art, helping you interpret other art by yourself. Each way has its own merit. Try both.

1. Joaquin Diaz Gonzalez, Scoperta d’un grande segreto dell’art nel Giudizio Universale di Michelangelo, 2nd. ed. (Rome: Angelo Belardetti) 1954; Charles de Tolnay, Michelangelo: The Final Period (Princeton University Press) 1960, p. 119, n.68

All Articles (Alphabetical by Artist, then Title)

Leonardo's closely observed landscape turns into something else entirely but only if you expect it

Leonardo’s Storm Over the Alps (c.1499)

What are we looking at in this strange masterpiece?

Leonardo’s Virgin of the Rocks (1483-6)

How even Pop Art is not what it seems

Lichtenstein’s Alka-Seltzer (1966)

The magic of Roy Lichtenstein's meaning

Lichtenstein’s Whaam! (1963)

A famous but much maligned painting has more poetry in it than its critics think

Lord Leighton’s Flaming June (1895)

Catching a glimpse of the divine or true good in our own being can be the start of a spiritual transformation as Lotto shows

Lotto’s St. Jerome (c.1506)

If an artist's first and last initials are the same, or his initial matches that of his hometown, like Lucas van Leyden's, it is more than likely to appear in his work as well.

Lucas van Leyden’s Standard-Bearer (c.1510)

Learn how to recognize an artist's hidden presence

Lucian Freud’s Girl with Roses (1947-8)

Learn how to look at the hidden side of Freud's paintings

Lucian Freud’s Queen Elizabeth II, Part 2

How much meaning can there be in a flying raven?

Manet’s Flying Raven (1875)

There is more to the Tragic Actor than meets the eye. Find out what's there that others cannot see.

Manet’s Tragic Actor (1865-6) Part 2

Matisse's Dance is a challenge for the eyes but a triumph once seen

Matisse’s Dance II (1910)

Why draw an abstract contour when you can draw a meaningful one?

Matisse’s La Coiffure (1901)

See how Matisse hid his initials in plain sight

Matisse’s Red Studio (1911)

Matisse gives us a lesson on how to look at art

Matisse’s Still-Life with Dance (1909)

To see what's in a painting can take a very long time... 15 years, in this case.

Matisse’s The Green Line (1905)

Look for the eyes. Then the face. Never forget to look for them because you can find them anywhere in art.

Matisse’s The Window (1916)

The more you look, the more you see

Matisse’s The Window (1916) Part 2

A quick look at how Matisse looks at himself

Matisse’s Two Women Playing Draughts (1922)

See how Notre-Dame, France's cathedral and symbol of the nation, becomes Matisse's

Matisse’s View of Notre-Dame (1914)

There is yet more meaning in the drawing as we see in Part 2 of this analysis

Michelangelo’s Archers Shooting at a Herm (c.1530) Part 2

There's probably more unseen in Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel than has ever been known....

Michelangelo’s Sistine Ceiling: Jeremiah (c.1509-10)

Miró's inventive and individualistic style, however modern, is merely a complement to his deep traditionalism. And that's as it should be.

Miró‘s Painting / The Circus Horse (1927)

See how a seemingly abstract painting is not quite so abstract after all

Miró‘s Women, Birds August 2 1973 (1973)

Was Monet's mind full of oceanic mysteries?

Monet’s Au Bord du Fjord, près Christiania (1895)

Is landscape portraiture? Monet clearly thinks so.

Monet’s Camille Monet in the Garden at Argenteuil (1876)

Underneath the architecture of Monet's cathedrals is a major surprise

Monet’s Rouen Cathedral (1892-4)

Did Morandi ever paint a still-life? I doubt it. Here's why….

Morandi’s Still-Life (1926)

Like scripture, there are two ways to view a landscape: externally and internally. See how...

Munch’s Coastal Landscape (1918)

Even for modern artists, creation was a sacred activity

Munch’s Old Man Praying (1902)

How yet another artist makes sense of Manet's Olympia

Oldenburg’s Pat, Lying as Olympia (1959)

Peale's American portraits have more in common with great European art than is generally accepted.

Peale’s Portrait of George Washington (c.1780)

Two protagonists in one painting must both represent the artist. It's a given in art so it's your job to find out how.

Picasso’s Cat Catching a Bird (1939)

See how Picasso turns one scene into another in ways that have never been seen

Picasso’s Five Figures in a Boat (1909)

Picasso turned the face of a Spanish queen into a townscape by fusing the two

Picasso’s Le Vert-Galant (1943)

See how what looks outside is really inside

Picasso’s Man Looking in a Mirror (1969)

Can you see the hidden "face" that experts don't?

Picasso’s Mandolin and Guitar (1924)

Find out how even Picasso's style has meaning

Picasso’s Ps and Massacre in Korea (1951)

How Picasso turned rocking chairs into his own self

Picasso’s Rocking Chairs (1956)

Genres are an artificial classification of little meaning. For instance, as here, still-life without life would be still-born.

Picasso’s Still-Life with Door, Guitar and Bottles (1916)

Picasso at his most abstract is still figurative in ways that have never been seen

Picasso’s The Kitchen (1948)

If you think landscapes are boring, think again.

Pissarro’s Village on a Hill-Top (c.1890)

See the miraculous head of Christ in Poussin's painting that no-one but artists has ever noted. The painting is up for sale next week with an estimate of $30 million.

Poussin’s Ordination (1640’s)

The quickest and most useful guide to the Sistine Chapel

Quick Guide to the Sistine Chapel

What has not been seen in great masterpieces could turn your head

Raphael’s Sistine Madonna, Part 2

How the setting is so rarely what you think....you must think differently

Rembrandt’s Bathsheba at Her Bath (1643)

Why would Rembrandt's beggar have art on his mind?

Rembrandt’s Beggar in a High Cap (c.1629)

Learn how a landscape can be the artist too

Rembrandt’s Landscape with a Stone Bridge (1638)

Find out why people pee on etchings

Rembrandt’s Man Making Water (1631) and Woman Making Water and Defecating (1631)

Sometimes the simplest images are the most fascinating

Rembrandt’s The Skater (c.1631)

How there is more to a landscape by Rembrandt than meets the eye

Rembrandt’s The Three Trees (1643)

The presence of a mystery in an artwork, intentionally made mysterious by the artist, does not mean that the mystery cannot be solved. Mysteries are made to be resolved.

Rembrandt’s Woman with the Arrow (1661)

If you like Renoir but can't see Raphael, you won't see Renoir's Raphael

Renoir’s Dance in the Country (1883)

It's a hidden truth in art: landscapes are never landscapes

Renoir’s Le Cannet (1902)

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