Reimagining Visual Framing

I like Salvador Dali.  His work is always very interesting.  I was originally drawn to this piece because I liked the use of space.  The sparse usage of line and shape evokes a feeling of loneliness and emptiness. The color scheme of drab blues, grays, and browns enhances this tone. The eye is clearly much larger than a normal eyeball, it seems small in the vast emptiness of the landscape.  The eye, which seems to be searching for something, is gazing down upon the most obvious lines in the painting, the eight lines coming toward the viewer from the horizon.  These lines create movement within the painting, as the eye appears to be following them toward the viewer.  The dark line of clouds in the background seems ominous and stands out in a painting with an otherwise light color scheme.  The stark lines coming toward the viewer are markedly different from the rest of the painting, which is filled with more organic and natural shapes. The lines on the ground and the mountains in the background provide depth cues, giving the viewer an idea of the distance between them, the eye, and the horizon.  These elements all work to make the viewer subconsciously uneasy. 

After reframing the painting, the eye and lines dominate the space.  It no longer looks so bleak and desolate.  Instead of being cut into thirds, the horizon cuts the painting in half.  There is a contrast between the top of the painting and the bottom.  There is affinity between the color of the eye and the background.  If not for the darker pupil, it would almost blend in with the cloudy sky.  While the giant hovering eye is still eerie, the feeling of loneliness is taken away along with the vast, empty landscape.  The tone of the painting seems less hopeless when it is cropped.   If the reframed version is something from a dream, the original is a scene from a nightmare.