The first gaze mentioned in the reading is in the first paragraph, it is the gaze of the painter, "The skilled hand is suspended in mid-air, arrested in rapt attention on the painter's gaze; and the gaze, in return, waits upon the arrested gesture." (1) We can't see what he is painting. Foucault describes the way we see the painter as, half way between visible and invisible, he is both representing something and being represented. We look at the painter looking at us and it creates a reciprocal relationship. It appears as though he is looking at whomever is viewing the painting, and painting the spectator. However, we also see that he is painting the Spanish Royalty from the little picture int the mirror. "We, the spectators, are an additional factor. Through greeted by that gaze, we are also dismissed by it, replaced by that which was always there before we were: the model itself." (3) However, he goes onto explain that his gaze can accept any number of spectators. The gaze keeps going back and forth between, "suject and object, the spectator and the model, reverse their roles infinity." The painting and essay both seem to describe a constant unending back and forth between gazes and subject matter.
When Foucault discusses briefly how mirrors, "play a duplicating role", and were traditionally used in Dutch painting I immediately thought of the Arnolfini Wedding Portrait painting, with the mirror behind them. I am really left wondering who is the most important part of the painting and whether or not it is important that we know after looking. Since the Princess is the only whole figure showing in the painting, is she the main subject? The optional reading seems to describe the painting's subject as being the experience of an encounter. Are we all equal to each other as far as the gaze goes? What is the point of this kind of painting and it's back and forth gaze implications?
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