The Elusive Illusion

I chose Merlito Gepte's "Dalawang Mukha ng Pag-Ibig" showcased at Megamall's Art Asia, located at 4th floor. This sculpture, which was made using synthetic bronze, won 1st place in the recently held 60th AAP Annual Art Competition in the Sculpture Category to which Nonoy attributes to his use of "optical illusion". He says, "Pag malayo ang view mo it will look positive (the negative,crucifixion), I painted it to look positive", even suggesting to the writer to "take a picture from about 10 to 12 ft para makita mo yung illusion.. Or better yet video mula harap paikot and you'll see the magic of it".

Indeed, there was a magical quality about the sculpture which surprised me. At first, I thought it was just some giant block of a weeping Christ, but as I went around to inspect some other sculpture, I was surprised to discover that this sculpture had two faces, a weeping and agonized Jesus Christ and a normal-looking Christ without blood and emotion on his face. The usual preacher in Jesus Christ was the other side of the sculpture. What was fascinating about the sculpture was that the suffering Christ was done in a cave-like way, while the benevolent Christ was protruding from the other side of the sculpture

The "other side" of Jesus' face was masterfully done with the details remarkably impeccable and accurate, such as the slope of the nose, its strength magnified ten times; even the gentleness of the eyes was emphasized in the sculpture. These kinds of emotional expression on the face of Christ were already details in its own way, but as a whole, these details never disrupts the unity of the sculpture or even disrupts the message the sculptor wanted to say.

The Illusion

I went back at ArtAsia for the second time to discover what Gepte was telling me about the optical illusion and followed his suggestion to take a picture of it. To the readers, there are two parts of the sculpture, the negative sculpture which is characterized by a weeping Christ done in a concave style and the positive sculpture is the benevolent Christ done in a convex style.

The optical illusion cannot actually be seen without the help of a digital camera and I found myself wondering where the illusion lies. As I took my first picture and then the next, I still had no idea what Mr. Gepte was talking about. Then I looked at my camera screen and to my surprise, the negative sculpture (concave) looked like it was a convex sculpture!

This illusion was especially highlighted by the nose which was originally sculpted inwards and it appeared to be protruding outward. Every facial feature looked they were protruding outward, much to my amazement and surprise. - ALEXIS LAURA FELICIANO