s n a p p e r h e a d: Examining Art and Thinking About What You See

          Let's assume you're someone with whom some work of art once inflicted gloom, caused the pace of your heart to bloom, or screamed until your (no longer wavering) attention was totally consumed. Is that you?...Ohh, Good.

If you're unfazed by my directness (still reading), obviously your eye has at least once in its life enjoyed a gaze sufficient to overwhelm—then—I intend to use this amazing Diamond Warrior as my example for navigating the beautifully crazed imagination of the artist Michael Parkes. Stop reading, take another look (below): where did Mr Parkes force your focus?...Ahh yes...as he intended it should.

My eye. It bumps down into the distant horizon near the bottom (where both the rump of the warrior and the [uncomfortably too-near] edge of the painting are found)—peering in—I'm surprised to discover: pyramids on fire and clumps of smoke resound (no rising-sun cliché caused those yellow clouds); and back my focus goes to breasts and a posture slumped against the chest. Is that the profile-face of a captive slave at rest?...Orr, no...I now see two contemplating conquerors (as Parkes expected I would).

          What detail brought that conclusion to the forefront of my mind, which your eye sought but failed to find? From breasts beautifully defined—nipples tight, skin-taught and unconfined—my attention traveled to behind: her wings of white (he and she're one-of-a-kind!) And, then, down-past his framing grey wings with her pale body entwined: are her hands gloved in his same-color skin or am I colorblind?...I'mm not...It's grey gloves which rest over her maidenhood.

So it's his adornment I—now—focus on; for assumptions mis-made and conclusions drawn: It's probably not skin but (instead) head-to-toe chiffon which provided protection as he burned the distant pantheon; also, it's not the hilt of a blade jutting out-upon his masculinity's shouldered brawn, but the scabbard of a diamond-powered cremation baton (obviously capable of rivaling the dawn); and what of his helmet's two white fronds?...Err, adjustable antenna (to keep the eye moving bottom-right to top-left is understood).

          We've spent many long minutes staring at two beings who can fly like linnets. One wearing a egyptian-blue lady's favor (tiny stars within it); the other bearing an expression of contentment or disdain or—you decide what she exhibits. Hopefully you paused to wonder about one incongruous tenet: If the artist intended to enforce—like a martinet—a constantly angled swirl-sweep of our eyes across his palette, why add, on her head, that single indigo pinnate?)...Mmm, to claim the warrior is looking anywhere but at that purplish gem would be a falsehood.