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Eyeballed: Suren Manvelyan's eerie animal close-ups are judging you Eyeballed: Suren Manvelyan's eerie animal close-ups are judging you
(7 months later)
Suren Manvelyan's photographs of animal eyes are surely destined soon to fill magazines, coffee-table books and science museums. Who doesn't like to look at powerful images of nature? And these pictures are not just scientific; they are strange. Photographed in ultra high definition on a massive scale in intense colour, these eyes meet and trouble yours. What animals do they belong to? It is impossible to decide just by looking.Suren Manvelyan's photographs of animal eyes are surely destined soon to fill magazines, coffee-table books and science museums. Who doesn't like to look at powerful images of nature? And these pictures are not just scientific; they are strange. Photographed in ultra high definition on a massive scale in intense colour, these eyes meet and trouble yours. What animals do they belong to? It is impossible to decide just by looking.
These fascinating pictures reach my desk in advance of the 50th Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition that opens at the Natural History Museum on 24 October. Art critics can bang on all we like about this season's big art events, but year in, year out one of the best-loved exhibitions of the British autumn is this mesmerising display of photographs taken by nature lovers of all ages, all over the world.These fascinating pictures reach my desk in advance of the 50th Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition that opens at the Natural History Museum on 24 October. Art critics can bang on all we like about this season's big art events, but year in, year out one of the best-loved exhibitions of the British autumn is this mesmerising display of photographs taken by nature lovers of all ages, all over the world.
Looking at the natural world is something human beings have found fascinating since we first started to carve and paint. Ice age art, carved mainly on reindeer antlers, could hardly be more remote from photography – but it does depict animals. It too shows the eyes of ancient horses, albeit as tiny dots.Looking at the natural world is something human beings have found fascinating since we first started to carve and paint. Ice age art, carved mainly on reindeer antlers, could hardly be more remote from photography – but it does depict animals. It too shows the eyes of ancient horses, albeit as tiny dots.
So many questions are raised by looking into the eyes of animals. Is an animal eye the portal of a consciousness, like our own? Does it look back at us mindfully, or at least knowingly? It can feel that way, especially in art. The eye of Whistlejacket, a famous 18th-century racehorse, looks out soulfully from its portrait in the National Gallery. So do the eyes of a stag portrayed by Velazquez in the 17th century. The French artist Charles Le Brun even drew the eyes of animals surreally grafted into a human face.So many questions are raised by looking into the eyes of animals. Is an animal eye the portal of a consciousness, like our own? Does it look back at us mindfully, or at least knowingly? It can feel that way, especially in art. The eye of Whistlejacket, a famous 18th-century racehorse, looks out soulfully from its portrait in the National Gallery. So do the eyes of a stag portrayed by Velazquez in the 17th century. The French artist Charles Le Brun even drew the eyes of animals surreally grafted into a human face.
Painters get carried away, but Manvelyan's photographs are more objective. The eyes he pictures, so vast and wide open, look eerie and alien, as if we were contemplating lakes or volcano craters in satellite photos. They sure don't look human. Is it then an illusion to see anything responsive in the eyes of animals? In his documentary Grizzly Man the filmmaker Werner Herzog claims to see no trace of consciousness in the eyes of a bear, and Robert Shaw as the fisherman Quint takes a similar view in Jaws when he says "a shark's got little piggy eyes, see, a shark's got dead eyes". Painters get carried away, but Manvelyan's photographs are more objective. The eyes he pictures, so vast and wide open, look eerie and alien, as if we were contemplating lakes or volcano craters in satellite photos. They sure don't look human. Is it then an illusion to see anything responsive in the eyes of animals? In his documentary Grizzly Man the filmmaker Werner Herzog claims to see no trace of consciousness in the eyes of a bear, and Robert Shaw as the fisherman Quint takes a similar view in Jaws when he says "a shark's got little piggy eyes, see, a shark's got dead eyes".
That may not be fair ... there is a mystery in the eyes of animals, a silent regard that we can only wonder about. They are watching us, as we pillage the natural world. Manvelyan has photographed the eyes of our judges.That may not be fair ... there is a mystery in the eyes of animals, a silent regard that we can only wonder about. They are watching us, as we pillage the natural world. Manvelyan has photographed the eyes of our judges.