#dongmark

idk how the maritime metaphors happened but they just came flowing (no pun intended) 🌊

wrote this for mahae for april 29th 🥹🫶🏻

this is my favourite markhyuck picture they look like a couple of sophisticated farmers. Here is my analysis as to why this is such a masterpiece.

The dynamics of the picture can be properly seen in the vertical lines of the composition in a slightly pyramidal structure. The eye of the viewer will follow those lines to the top where the two heads join, but not really. Look how the artist made the journey thrilling from the bottom to the top while disappointing the viewer by disjointing their heads? The artist chose the shoulders as a point of contact instead of the heads which suddenly gives the structure a slightly frail and unstable aspect.

While the man is leaning forward, the woman appears oddly unbalanced. This could reflect a conservative sight of the family where the male is the pillar the rest of the family can lean on. He has to carry everything on his shoulders. But it is actually a caricature of said views, still very strong in the rural areas where the artist had retired to when she made this masterpiece. The exaggerated difference of the characters’ feet size is a hint that she might be voluntarily enphasizing on such a cliché representation of the farmer family.

On the subject of their heads not touching, we can also see in this choice a way to project how the minds of the two partners would not meet through similar thoughts and how the both of them would never see eye to eye, making an obvious reference to marriages of convenience. One can notice the difference in their stances, while the man is joining this hands, the woman keeps them tensed along her body. This symbolizes their different approaches to the problem they are both facing.

The both of them are looking to the right with slightly concerned expression yet the artist does not let the viewer know what puts the couple in such an anguished state. It is only suggested that they are part of a larger scene by the shadows appearing on the far left and far right of the frame. Why would one make the choice of just showing this couple of quite ordinary farmers instead of what is obviously retaining everyone’s attention, happening at the same time? Why voluntarily picking a vertical format, cutting all the context and every other aspect of the scene ? The focus is on the farmers. The answer is: real and authentic people. The two are dressed with fancy, awkwardly trying to look like they are from a higher social class even though they are so obviously attached to traditions (note how covering the woman's clothes are). This is reminiscent of Gustave Courbet and other realist painters from the middle of the 19th century which the artist mentioned admiring in a letter to her sister dating back from 1904[1].

One of the unique traits of this piece is the word "with" included right above the heads of the couple, suggesting we should interrogate ourselves on "without". We find these two ridiculous but what would society look like without them? There is no definite answer to this question but the social awareness of the artist lets us assume she might have thought such traditions were bound to disappear.

However the most interesting point results from the recent discovery made by scholars that the two characters used as models by the artist might actually have been males. This is most definitely shining a new light and raising questions about this intriguing piece, as well as the artist's whole oeuvre.