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Artwork analysis by Kryss
 I was thinking about the artwork this morning, and decided that I may as
well analyze it, because, dammit, a fine arts education has to come in handy
at some point! ;-)
Lets see... First I will discuss some of the elements, and then I will
discuss their traditional significance and my interpretation.
Overall, the predominant colours are cool; the background is blue, her dress
and the mist are white. The only warm colours on the entire cover are
associated with Vincent. Traditionally, cool colours are associated with
death, warm colours are alive. Vincent is alive, but Catherine and all else
around him speak of death.
They are both in sharp focus, but there is no other background; they are
separate from the world. They are both in focus, which ties them together,
but they are distinctly separate, as well. She is standing almost directly
behind him, but our perspective allows us to see her as well. He cannot. But
they are both looking to the left, which often represents the past.
She is facing it square on and looking straight ahead, to the left, into the
past. She has no future; all she has, all she is, is in the past. He is
looking in the same direction as her, to the left, towards their shared past,
but he is facing towards us, and very slightly to the right. He yearns for
the shared past with her, but is forced, apparently unwillingly, into the
future. He is alive; he must go on, even if he doesn't want to. But he longs
for that shared past with her, which is the only existence she now has.
One other element ties them together: the mist. It speaks of the spiritual;
it surrounds her; she appears to either be rising from it or a part of it.
However, it also comes forward to tie them both together and swirl about his
waist, his loins. There is a spiritual connection between them still, and a
physical one: their son, Jacob. The mist about Vincent is in sharper focus
than that around Catherine: that shared connection, Jacob, has ties to her
which cannot be denied, but it is still a part of his world.
Her hair is exposing her face. The image has been reversed; normally, from
this angle her hair would fall forward to cover her scar. However, she is
baring that memento of her meeting with Vincent, of the night that changed
her life. She no longer needs to hide that side of who she is. Her face is
at peace. Poor Vincent's, on the other hand, is troubled, and slightly
off-kilter. Both their images have apparently been reversed: their world has
been inverted; their roles turned upside down. What was together and fought
to stay apart (their relationship, that remained unconsummated despite their
physical proximity) now is forever sundered and yearns to be joined.
All in all, it is a very sad, wistful cover.
Of course, this is all my own interpretation; I'm sure their images were
reversed not for the symbolism, but simply because that was the best way for
them to get the shots they wanted, for example. But it's fun to analyze,
sometimes. Mind you, I offer this with the caveat that one can find deep
symbolic meaning in the patterns the cream stirred into one's coffee makes,
heh. ;-)
Cheers!
~Kryss LaBryn - BC, Canada
Artwork analysis by S
I do love coffee, I do like to analyze, and I am obsessed enough to think that the symbolism that often can be perceived in
this show is the "truth" struggling to appear, despite what The Powers That Be
decided. I believe that this is yet another time such "truth" shines through. Everything Kryss wrote is right, beautifully written, and sensible. (Thank you!)
It's what we see, and that cover portrays what we have watched in the Third
Season. We are induced to believe that it shows a sad Vincent and a dead
Catherine looking to the past, to their lost love, surrounded by the mist of an
otherworldly setting. But, they look strange, distorted, they are not exactly "them".
Something is wrong.
Or is it right? As we all have noticed, the whole pic is reversed. In
the original pics (that come from a shot for a calendar and from the
episode A Distant Shore), they are not looking
to the left, "into the past", but to the right, and if you flip the image, they look much more natural.
And what if the mist that surrounds them hinted to a
dreamy situation, rather than to an otherworldly one? In fact, the pic of Catherine
actually comes from a dream scene, the scene on the beach of A Distant Shore.
An
episode full of dreams, and one of the last episodes of the Second Season, after
which our story begins to take strange, dark turns...
To me, that weird, reversed cover for the official Third Season is just... perfect. It says: beware, what
you are seeing (what you watched) may seem real, but if you find it strange, you
are right: it's not the truth, it has been warped. Believe your heart, not your eyes.
Smile, Vincent, it was just a nightmare... S
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