Search For The Hidden [1]

Search For The Hidden, first part: The Crowned Man

(1h pencil & powdered graphite sketch on ~A5 paper, refined with gold leaf)

No thoughts and no prayers
can bring back what’s no longer there.
The silent are damned.

What will you leave behind?

Stylistically rooting in A Restless Dream, I finally started this new series (actually planned as continuation of A.R.D.). The ideas and sketches for this sketch series were captured in my sketchbook for some months, but starting with The Crowned Man, they will finally be released into daylight.
The dream awoke.

4 Comments

  1. I’m annoyed x)
    I think I see the theme underlying, but I totally fail to put it in relation with the drawing.

    As the series explore the themes suppressed in the Zeitgeist (let’s say the taboos), I suppose when I read the poem that the theme here is related to death and posterity. In today’s society, most of people act as if death didn’t exist and they tend to avoid carefully all topics that can make them think about it, especially what they’re going to left after their death.
    Usually they’re asking themselves the question only when death become imminent and it’s often too late to change the answer to the question, and at this moment they regret. Btw the unsatisfactory answer is not necessarily “nothing”: I had a fantastic professor in university, who had a brilliant career, but when reaching 50 she realize she has sacrificed family life to achieve this: she regretted to not have children and family, but at this moment it was too late (it seems to be quite common as I know some other people (nearly all women btw) who’re in the same situation, outstanding career but they regret to haven’t built a family instead).

    Well, at least those would be remembered through their works, but those without big achievement are going to be forgotten very quickly, if not immediately.
    As Terry Pratchett said, a man die only when the ripples they caused in the world died away too. I would say that some people make a big splash, while a lot of other barely disturb the waters of destiny.

    Well, I’ve wandered pretty far off initial topic x)
    So I don’t see how to relate all this to the drawing itself.
    I can just suppose, if the flower is a rose, that it symbolize the fragility of life and the passing of time, although it’s a reading of the rose a bit uncommon today (it’s mostly Neuzeit reading, today’s symbolic is more related to love than fragility).

    1. Author

      100% correct, I’m impressed 😀

      How to put it in relation with the drawing?
      As you see, the man himself is rather old, therefore starting to question “what he will leave behind”. The golden border is like a frame of a picture or a mirror: inside is how he has seen himself (maybe also how others saw him on the surface), but outside the border lies the truth: he’s vanishing. He will be gone and leave nothing behind but bones that will fade too eventually.
      About the eye and crown above him in short: before starting to question mentioned things he had a self-image that was pretty much ok (he didn’t question it), but then, after realizing some things, the realization hurts him (if he would put the crown like that on his head it wouldn’t be comfortable). The crown is soaring above him like a sword of damokles. There is not much time left to change something and death is waiting. The eye symbolizes that he “sees” (the truth) now. (you might see that his eyes inside the frame are actually blind)

  2. Nah it’s not correct, as I didn’t manage to link it with the drawing x)

    Hmm ok, I don’t think I would have found that x) Thanks for the explanation x)

    1. Author

      But still pretty good!

      No problem 😀

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