Jonathan with Eyes Closed
Jonathon with Eyes Closed communicates through a dichotomy of distance created in its composition. While the man's face is much larger than life, decreasing the space between the viewer and the image, his eyes are closed, shutting the viewer out from anything beyond his expression. Alone, the photograph portrays pain, but the addition of a viewer brings not only the aesthetic beauty of the image into play, but also its humanity. Reading the man's acutely painful expression through an empathetic lens induces emotional resonance within the viewer. Through this sense of connection and understanding, viewing Jonathan becomes a pleasurable experience and a more personal narrative, despite the perceived pain.
The duality of pain and pleasure present in this piece provides an opportunity to explain that activities that can cause pain and pleasure are often experienced in various ways even when the cause of the pain or pleasure remains consistent, as human beings have the ability to modulate their own pain and pleasure. Pain is a complicated phenomenon and cannot be pinpointed to an exact location within the human body. The cause of pain is often discussed as the result of a pain matrix because there are so many aspects that contribute to the creation of pain. The many aspects of the pain matrix are not yet understood but it is assumed that in various ways people can at times effectively alter their own experiences of pain and pleasure either consciously or subconsciously. This can be seen in how some women experience labor as pleasurable while other women experience it as painful (Wilson, 2011).
Our fundamental "human" knowledge, that is, our empathetic database of human expression, certainly affects our interpretation of the relationship between pain and pleasure present and thus our corresponding experience. Should the viewer only identify with the subject's pain, they themselves have a different understanding of and thus relationship with the portrait. Should the viewer connect the portrait to a previous identification of pleasure, however, then the viewer may derive a feeling of release and experience dual sensations. This is inextricably linked to our understanding of "martyrdom" and, in fact, how we interpret pain relative to a consequent spiritual and social love.