Talk:Two Old Ones Eating Soup

Regarding the face of the figure on the right

The article insists that "the face of the other figure [on the right] hardly seems alive at all. Its eyes are black hollows and the head in general bears the aspect of a skull." The problem with this assertion is that, whether it was the intention of Francisco Goya or not, the right side figure's face can be seen as an example of an ambiguous image. The description of a face that "bears the aspect of a skull" only refers to one of the two possible faces that can be seen on the figure.

The second face visible, which I will refer to as "the soup face," as it looks like it is eating soup, can be more easily identifiable in the painting with the following characteristics in relation to the "skull face":

• The "nose" of the skull face is the eye of the soup face
• While the skull face has two eyes(?) visible in the picture, the soup face only has one, and is in profile
• The skull face is looking towards the left, presumably at the same thing the figure on the left is looking at. The soup face is looking downwards
• similarly to the figure on the left, the soup face's visible eye has a sclera (white of the eye), unlike the skull face, whose "eyes are black hollows"
• the upper lip of the skull face is the soup face's nose. The soup face has its lips in a semi-puckered face, presumably because they are eating soup

As both the skull face and the soup face seem to have enough detail to be easily seen as a face, it cannot be readily determined which face is the "correct" face, or if the figure's face was intentionally made to be reversible. I would thereby argue that either the ambiguity of the image be noted, or that the description of the right face be changed or removed. The argument of this change is supported by this section being unsourced, and thereby lacking harder evidence to support the assertion of the skull face being the objectively correct face. --6x6shooter (talk) 08:45, 18 August 2022 (UTC)