Double portrait of Jean de Dinteville and Georges de Selve.
Mystery of the Ambassadors is a play in two acts. Positioning of the painting had to follow strict rules, and to get the desired effect, it had to be hanged very low on the wall, so that It appeared that the real floor is continued in the painting...
The first act takes place when the visitor enters through the door and finds himself, within a certain distance, before two men projected on the background. Everything seems to be in order at the first sight, but then the perception is disturbed by an amorphous "stain" at their feet. In order to solve the enigma, a spectator might want to take a closer look, only to find the "stain" even more distorted and completely incomprehensible. Confused visitor withdraws through the door to the right, the only open, to experience the second act.
When the observer is almost in the neighboring room, he takes one last look back, and only than it becomes clear: the whole picture disappeared in the optical reduction and a secret element appears: a skull between a human shine. Both persons and all their scientific attributes disappear, and they are replaced by The End. The game is over. (Jurgis BaltruĊĦaitis, Anamorphoses ou Thaumaturgus Opticus, Flammarion, Paris, 1984)
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 "Ambassadors")
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