Gottfried Helnwein Image Response

The image on the class blog, made be Gottfried Helnwein, depicts close up of a girls face. This makes it so we only see the right eye (off to the left) and the nose (off to the right).

Going through the middle of the nose is a line. This line is actually a rope, and at about two thirds of the way up the rope is a man that looks like a mountain climber. He is miniscule, only being around as large as the girls pupil.

The girls facial expression is neutral, but the eyes stare directly at the camera, implying that she is looking straight at the viewer.

Trying to decipher what is going on here is slightly difficult, as it really doesn't appear to be implying any meaning. The man is climbing the girl's face like a mountain, and the girl doesn't seem to even notice or care about the man. 

This is very clearly an artistic image, as it is quite impossible to take an image like this as a naturally occurring event. This means that the image was definitely made in Photoshop. This makes the purpose of the image be to convey a theme or meaning, and not to document something.

Now what that meaning is about is where it gets a bit tricky. Really the only thing I could think of is that the man being so tiny shows how small he must feel when compared to the rest of the world. Or it could be the opposite, about how the girls feels so much larger than everyone else.

Or maybe there's another, more cryptic meaning behind the image that I have not yet discovered. 

To be honest, I don't really know. The purpose behind this piece of modern art is hard to uncover.

With that being said, the image does have a specific meaning to me.

I believe that the image is trying to convey the idea that people think they're bigger and/or smaller than other people.

The man trying to climb the girl's face communicates to me that the guy feels small himself, and that the girls is much bigger than him, and vice versa with the girl. Now, what does this mean? Well, I have no idea, but it does give some theme to this image.

People often see the world differently, whether it be feeling bigger or feeling smaller than the world. But whatever the way you see the world, this image shows it.

Are you the guy, facing something much larger then you without even noticing? Or are you the girl, bigger than everyone and not seeing the smaller things?

It doesn't matter who you are, it's here. And that makes this image kinda cool.

Thanks Gottfried, you gave the teacher something for us to do!

Here's the image. Credit to Gottfried Helnwein.