Eyewitnesses

Eyewitnesses

My photo series entitled “Eyewitnesses” deals with Piero della Francesca’s “Flagellation of Christ”. The architectural décor of the painting is so logical and exact that it allows for the reconstruction of the scene of the flagellation, as though it had happened in an actual building. The treatment of light is likewise accurate. Researchers have discovered a mysterious source of light at the point where Christ is looking, and which alludes to the presence of the Father. The halo of Jesus is the source of the third light, which art historians have not dwelt on to the best of my knowledge. After making up the most important elements of the décor, I tried to find the exact position of each character, the sources of light and the perspective seen in the painting itself. I myself excluded natural light from the three sources, and observed the mystical light and how it illuminates the scene (in the virtual space of the computer, something exists only if there is light, illumination). In order to separate the two sources of light, I signified the light coming from Jesus’ halo with a warm colour, while I represented the light proving the presence of the Father with a cold colour. It could thus be seen how far the two sources of light, which in the original painting were eclipsed by natural light, illuminated the figures in the scene. Having done all this, what I wanted to know was how much these figures saw of the flagellation; not from the traditional perspective Piero della Francesca had originally used during painting, but through a wide-angle lens, which expands the normal human field of vision. It is these viewpoints that can be seen on the photo series called “Eyewitnesses”.