My first impression is that the black splotch is the burnt-out remains of a fire, and primed by that, my mind jumped to the reddish streak on the right as either a flame or damage from a fire.
My second impression is that the whole thing could be rust.
And my third impression is that the reddish streak is a man, looking down at whatever the black splotch is.
And of course all three of those, as well as the blood others are mentioning, work well for the theme of the album. So I’d say that the artist did a good job at it.
Was giving this a listen the other day as I’ve never gravitated toward NIN. The first 3 minutes of “Becoming” is the only real standout for me. Before I looked more closely I had thought it was a revolver being represented in the lower left, suicidal ideation likely being implied.
This is why it the picture entertained us. Such divergent views. If you want to hear stupid, I’ll tell you what a friend said. There appears to be an image of two people, one adult sized and one child-sized. The man appears to be leading the child by his hand and has his other arm up in front of his face, partially blocking it.
Anyway, said friend suggested that the bright "V"ish image that looked like it was part of the shirt he was wearing was a version of a “Scarlet Lettter”. In this case, due to the sexual nature of much of the album, he suggested that the “V” stood for virgin.
I see the three arrows but I still don’t see any shapes or forms. Can you describe what each arrow is pointing at? I see tiny arrow, open arrow and long arrow, describing them from upper to lower.
Funny thing is, actually, I see the T Rex now–like its walking towards the viewer with its tongue stuck out, right? The face I sorta see, too, but I can’t unsee the T Rex now that it’s been mentioned and my mind has made sense of the blobs. They were nothing but blobs as of this morning.
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I see the arrows. I see the indefinite lines they point to. I have no idea what you see where you indicated you see something. I continue to see no recognizable or deliberate shapes or forms. That’s why I’m asking you to be specific. All I see are random drips and runs and smears.
But given where you’re seeing this dinosaur (on the cover of an album chronicling sex addiction and personal demons), what would make more sense? A dinosaur or a wounded and embattled man?
Like I said, for many, many, many years until now, I have not seen anything in the splotches. It’s just been a wash of color, shapes, and textures that give off a gritty, distressing vibe. It’s never occurred to me to try to “see shapes in the clouds” in this artwork.
Well I never tried either, it just sort of happened after a prolonged exposure to a particularly crisp and clear version of the picture. In my eyes, it’s so clearly a left profile view of a man’s face looking down onto whatever that black mass is, I feel almost like I’m in a Twilight Zone episode listening to others’ descriptions.
Well, that’s kind of the nature of the thing, innit? Once you ascribe a representational image to a non-representational bit of artwork, it’s hard to unsee it. I mean, I do see what you’re getting at, but since my brain saw the T Rex thing first after being primed for it by the responses in this thread, it’s hard for me not to see that. The face you see looks cartoonish and forced to me compared to the T Rex. But that’s the first sense my brain made of the blobs, so it’s kind of stuck now. I can totally understand how you can’t unsee the face, since that’s the sense your brain made of the blobs first.
