Not To Be Reproduced

For this week's homework, I decided to pick and focus on Rene Magritte's "Not to Be Reproduced." The painting depicts a man staring into a mirror, only instead of seeing his reflection, he sees the back of his own head. I love the surrealists; I have always loved them, so it was exciting to see Magritte's painting as one of the selections in Berger's photo essay. I think what I'm really drawn to is the fact that while at face value the painting seems absurd (after all you can't see the back of your head in a mirror,) after looking at it, really looking at it, it makes a lot of sense. When you look in a mirror, you always see versions of yourself, monsters, beauties, the person who stares back wondering what on earth are you doing. Staring at the back of your own head is almost contemplative. You are watching yourself being watched, sort of like Berger said in Chapter 3. You are watching yourself to see how are you being watched, what are people really seeing when they see you. And of course, I think the title is relevant in the sense that you can never reproduce the same look, the same body motion, the same idea. It's always going to get changed just a little bit each time, because we are constantly picking up on different cues, reacting to different things, learning little things that can change something on a bigger scale. Our perceptions are never the same twice.