#visages

2 hours well spent!

So first step in my interpretation is really internalizing that in one of the endings of the game, Verso and Renoir, the two characters who would be most devastated by Maelle's ending, are in that ending symbolically merged into one old man who weeps for her and for himself -> Maelle has painted Verso to be an OLD man wearing Painted Renoir's suit and still wearing Renoir's wedding ring because she cannot bear to lose her father as well, even though she chose to lose him in an equally devastating way that she lost Verso. In order to exorcize the pain of her father's loss as well, she has combined that pain with the loss of her brother, and it all swirls together, and they swirl together.

The last image of the game, we see Renoir's wedding ring as Verso plays piano.

(I have watched many people play that ending, and a good percent of them can't tell whether it's Renoir or Verso when he first appears on the stage. The image of him as specifically OLD is on purpose in this way. Many, many people were not able to easily tell the 3 men apart in the scene on the cliff, too. I've seen so many people speculate while playing that Renoir is Older Gustave. And Gustave, and Verso wear each other's hair styles and clothes as well as both wearing Renoir's clothes and hairstyle, whereas Lune and Sciel can't swap hairstyles. So the 3 men are conflated in a way that Lune and Sciel aren't with each other.)

This is something that Aline did as well -> Aline, whose pain is so identical to Alicia's, when painting the Mirror of Renoir, painted him wearing not his own more casual clothes*, but the spectacularly fashionable suit that Verso died in**. Perhaps she, because her pain is identical to Alicia's on seemingly every level, felt the loss of still-living Renoir in the same way that Maelle felt the loss of still-living Renoir in her ending, as they both pulled away from him but couldn't bear facing his loss, either.

Renoir himself speaks about trading himself for Verso as if the two men can be traded or equivalently exchanged for the other - "I would have traded my years for his."

* Renoir did not even dress up for the Official Family Portrait, without a jacket, without a tie, and even has his sleeves rolled up. If ever there was a time where you would dress formally, it would be an Official Family Portrait, but he didn't even put on a tie. This man did not dress formally.

**Verso is the one who wears the full beautiful dark suit in the Official Family Portrait, and the suit appears again in Alicia's flashback about his death.

So Painted Mirror Renoir was painted to wear Verso's clothes at some point, and he continues to wear his clothes 67 years later. The two meld together into one confused delusional comforting image through the pain of Aline.

(A long tangent -> This conflating of Verso and Renoir is extended to Gustave as well, who Invents Things in a workshop like Renoir, who would have loved trains like Verso, who was separated by his love through a disagreement like Renoir, who would have saved Maelle at all costs the way Renoir and Verso would, whose eyes change from Brown to Blue in the moment of his death. The game, at times, is itself confused about the 3 adult male characters and merges them into each other. They are such parallels to each other and the game loves playing with that.)

(In a very real way, because the game presents Gustave's suicidal tendencies at almost the same moment that Renoir appears on the stage causing both the Gommage and then the End of Expedition 33 (introducing Death into the setting), and then Gustave and the game itself seems to go on to describe Renoir as simply "Death approaching" and nothing more complex than that at first (Renoir doesn't once speak a single word to Gustave, and is in no way anything more than a Symbol or Force of Nature in Gustave's story) - in a way, the game seems to be also merging Renoir and Gustave together, but Renoir is the personification of Gustave's suicidal ideation. Which also parallels and probably stems from Verso's suicidal ideation.)

(So the scene on the cliff, on second viewing, has the most delicious added metaphorical layered meanings. So many that it's almost a fractal. Gustave-Renoir becomes an image of a Suicidal Man who inevitably and always Kills Himself for Alicia/Maelle, reenacting Verso's death. The suicide is externalized into the person of Renoir because he is the one who is trying to make the world of the Canvas and Aline and Alicia to admit that the Brother's death is real. The Cane and the sound it makes is the inexorable, wordless approach of the brother's suicidal self-sacrificial death, that must be accepted as a fact that happened and will always happen. The sky is blue. The brother, who was already suicidal, sacrifices himself for the sister.)

(The Father is the force that gently urges the violence of Sudden Death to be admitted and taken as truth (a kindness, not a cruelty... an act of love), and thus Renoir is Death Incarnate, here to interrupt the idyllic unreal world in order to return the laws of nature and the reality of death to their true spheres, to bring Death even to this world that could deny Death, so that those alive may truly live, for the sake of the living, for those who come after. Renoir, after gently killing Gustave, looks down at Gustave as if he is confused at Maelle's shock. The Brother and Son already saved and always saved the sister. The truth cannot be denied. Renoir metaphorically must bring this fact into the story. And it is only when he speaks to Maelle and thus stops being the Unspeaking Incarnation of Inexorable Death that he returns to being a character in his own right. And it is, of course, RIGHT after playing this role is over that Renoir is finally named "Renoir" by Verso and so stops being Death Incarnate in the story.)

Anyway, back to my main point. The game confuses Renoir and Verso and Gustave. Renoir-Verso-Gustave. (They were all played at one point by the same motion capture artist, purposefully, too.)

"We couldn't tell if you were my bother or my father, but to me, you were both. The best father and brother I've ever had."

So this merging of Verso and Renoir (and Gustave) into one comforting person seems to be almost the dream of the Canvas as dreamed by Aline and Alicia. These images are very complicated to me and I don't think that it's really correct to nail it down to just one meaning, so imagine me on the ground knocked out with all these details swirling above my head like little chirping birds.

Brother-father-son.

Keeping this in mind, and this last part is not really about Gustave, but just the other two. I was also thinking about how Renoir actually painted a lot of self-portraits in this game -

The unthreatening, encouraging Green Tophat Orphelin in Reacher, who always builds up his daughter and never sabotages her, and wants her only to fly

The tissuer, who quietly toils, a life dedicated to creating beauty for Sirene, who even in his dedication holds the immunity to her charm

(I wish we knew more about the Hauler, and what Renoir's self-portrait for Clea might have been)

and it was bothering me that he did not also have an obvious self-portrait in Visages. But then I remembered that the game deliberately meshes the two of them together at several points. And Renoir talks about "I would have traded my years for his" THE MOMENT BEFORE YOU CONFRONT Visages itself, and it made me think that maybe that "first round" of Visages is the self-portrait of Renoir, while the Mask Keeper is Verso.

Painted Renoir knows that Verso is lying through the whole game, and while Renoir comes close to spilling the secret, he doesn't do so. He keeps Verso's secret.

Verso knows that the Curator is lying in wait the whole game, and while Verso could have told the Expedition at any time, he doesn't do so. He keeps Renoir's secret.

(so they are both characters who "wear masks" and lie)

Renoir is accused of "playing tricks" by Aline - it seems like Verso actually gets his subterfuge from Renoir, and it might be a trait they share

Painted Renoir summons Visages' masks in the fight in Old Lumiere, and the "strange petals" he summons also have masks on them (it's very obscured because of magical effects, but they have masks on them). So Renoir uses them as his own powers.

The Faded Man talks about how he would have traded his years for him (trading one character for another)

Visages IS basically Verso-through-the-eyes-of-Renoir, or in other words, Verso and Renoir mixed together. "Art is both window and mirror, and great art is both" - Renoir's paintings are windows and mirrors to himself.

So I personally think I see that first part of Visages, as what Renoir wishes that he could have been for Verso -

- a shield!!

Renoir wishes that he had died in Verso's place, much like how the first facade of Visages (which is just simply a medley of his fatherly art advice), is killed and only then is the "true" axon, his true son able to be attacked. Renoir wished he had been there, he wishes that he had died before and for Verso. In the game, Renoir gets this wish - or at least, the painted version does. So I personally interpret that first silent part of Visages is perhaps Renoir's self-portrait in that Axon.

Incidentally, I truly thought that when the Mask Keeper spoke, that was Andy Serkis voicing him (I later found out that it's not Andy Serkis but instead the voice actor for Monoco voicing the Mask Keeper), but regardless, I thought it was interesting that Verso's axon would have 1) a voice, and 2) have such a deep voice that sounds almost exactly like Renoir and not Verso. It's kind of terribly sad that Renoir painted him to recite his own words, like Renoir suspected or knew that Verso only parroted back the words that Renoir said to him and that Renoir wanted to hear...? It's such a strange and haunting axon.