Macarena Esperanza
Much of the viewer's pain is contingent upon the understanding that this painting depicts another depiction of the Virgin Mary, and thus, in at least an emotional sense, depicts the Virgin Mary herself. Here, the idea of knowledge becomes crucial; a connection to or emotional understanding of Catholicism or Christianity adds an additional pleasure potentially inaccessible to a viewer without that established connection. This idea rings particularly true with the chiefly Catholic understanding that the statue depicted is, in fact, the Virgin Mary. Further, with the viewer's value system informed by their faith, a religious appreciation for and understanding of "martyrdom" is arguably required to access much of the awe and love cemented into the painting.
While the piece gains more weight depending on the viewer's associations with the Virgin Mary, on its own it still depicts both pain and pleasure. Without that extended narrative, however, this piece depicts pain through the tears escaping the figure's eyes, yet it has "hope" in its name, and its gold background and rich adornment are visually pleasing to look upon. The fact that the piece is a copy of a famous statue also suggests external pleasure- that if such an artistic rendition is merely an imitation, then the original figure could be even more beautiful.
It is in this piece that it is appropriate to talk about how the pain and pleasure processing systems within the human body overlap. Within the human body, there are various neurochemical circuits that exist to pass along signals. Recent studies have shown that one neurochemical circuit, the opioid-meditated pathways, is able to stop pain from occurring. Astoundingly, the same pathways can also enable pain. This new understanding of the connection between the channels means that pain and pleasure are explicitly linked within the human body. These shared pathways may have implications for understanding how it is that similar stimuli can affect different people, or even the same person at different times, in vastly dissimilar ways (Kut et al., 2011).