Triggering of the Mind's Eye

In the last post, Larry made a comment that is pertinent to the degree of enjoyment one can have from excellent images: the triggering of the mind's eye in wanting to explore beyond the two dimensional surface of a picture — to awaken curiosity so as to imagine what the environment is like beyond the walls, through the gates and doors and windows of a magnificent structure — to imagine who might live here and what their lives might be like.

To imagine the unfolding of human drama to explain how and why a person hangs from a gibbet, the rotting corpse attracting carrion, punishing beyond death an enemy of the people.

detail of a late 1800s magazine halftone of a German knight's castle