The Eye of Silence is a 42½” x 55½” horizontal oil on canvas painting. The piece was created by Max Ernst in 1944.
This composition features a female figure and several structures. These structures appear to be buildings. The most frequently used color in this composition is green.
In the foreground, there are what seem to be the ruins of some sort of building. The ground is greenish-brown and rocky. An elaborate structure rises from the rocky ground on the left side of the composition. This structure is mostly colored in a spring green. Here and there one may find iridescent blue spheres and crescents embedded in the structure’s walls.
The sprawling shape of this structure appears organic, as if this structure has grown up from the rock, tended by a careful caregiver, who pruned, twisted, and wove this plant-palace’s walls into an intricate design. The color and design of this structure makes it appear alien. It looks like something from another world, a very exotic building.
A portion of the left part of this structure is what appears to be a tower. The shape of this supposed tower is that of a cylinder topped with a half-circle. The corners of this half-circle are pointing downwards, like those of a frown. Two ribbon-like portions of the rest of this structure reach out from the area that is to the left of the supposed tower and appear to “strap in” the “tower.” These ribbon-like parts of the structure wrap around the cylindrical portion of the “tower,” holding it up, almost seeming to cradle it. The way in which these ribbon-like parts of the structure appear to support the “tower” is reminiscent of the way that a hammock would support a person lying in it.
Another portion of this structure is shaped in a way that is similar to the shape of a leaf. This portion of the structure is located in the bottom-left corner of the structure. One can only see almost half of this “leaf.” The “leaf” is a yellow-green color. The “leaf” also has holes in it, as if bugs have been chewing away at it.
Across the bone-like, rocky floor from the structure, a fair female figure lounges. She leans on her elbows, grasping something green. Her skin seems paler than moonlight, and her hair is woodland green. About half of her face is in shadow. It is up to speculation as to if the foliage encircling her head is part of her hair, or part of a garment. Or perhaps this foliage is merely tangled with her hair; it is unclear.
The stone flooring is rather bone-like. Part of the flooring also covers what appears to be part of a wall that is in the foreground and on the leftmost part of the composition. The flooring appears to climb up and form a balcony above the aforementioned green structure.
In the center of the composition, the floor forms an ellipse. This ellipse has upturned corners, similar to those of a smile. Behind this ellipse lies what appears to be a cavernous pit. The walls of the pit are similar in color to the rest of the rocky formation, but they are in shadow. To the left of the pit is a bridge-like formation that has the same characteristics of the aforementioned green structure. Between the bridge-like formation and the aforementioned green structure lies what appears to be a dirt path leading down towards a body of water. The color of what seems to be the dirt of this “path” is similar to the color of Georgia red clay.
Behind the pit and on the right side of the composition, there is another structure. This structure is darker than the other, and parts of it are shaped in a way that is similar to a bat’s wings. This dark structure appears to be made of stone, and has crescent-moon-shaped holes in it here and there. Instead of having blue spheres like the previous structure, this structure has dark green and half-dried-blood-colored spheres embedded in it. There is also a dark green object that is ellipse-shaped embedded in part of this structure. This structure is mostly reddish brown, grey, black, and various shades and tints of green. The cavernous pit has the same coloration as this structure.
To the left of and behind the darker of the two aforementioned structures is an area of mostly flat, rocky ground. Behind this mostly flat area is another structure. This structure is very similar to the first structure, the light green structure. This structure, however, appears to have mosses growing on much of it. There is a sideways-whistle-shaped hole in the center of the upper right-hand portion of this structure. This structure, like the first structure, has iridescent blue spheres and crescents embedded in its walls. On the right-hand side of the upper right-hand portion of this structure, there is what appears to be a brown, turtle-shaped growth.
On the upper left side of this structure, there are two candlestick-like parts of the structure. The shape of these candlestick-like parts of the structure is what makes them appear similar to candlesticks. The general shape of these candlestick-like parts is that of a pillar or column, such as one might see holding up the roof of a building, topped with a very short ellipse that is wider than the column. Between the column and the ellipse is a transitional area where the column widens gradually to meet the ellipse. This ellipse forms the rim of the “candlestick.” The leftmost of the two candlestick-like parts has another part of the structure spiraling around it.
The background is mostly made up of clouds and a blue sky. The clouds are various shades and tints of white, gray, and green. In the lower background, however, one may catch a glimpse of what appears to be water. How large this supposed body of water is remains unclear. One cannot tell if it is an ocean, a lake, or a river. This supposed body of water is colored in white, blues, and grays. Between what seems to be a body of water and the sky, there are small overlapping circular shapes. These shapes seem to be colored in green, white, gray, blue, and combinations of those colors. These shapes appear to represent land that is across the supposed body of water from the aforementioned green structures.
