... I am immediately drawn to the emaciated melting figure, in particular the face which glares at the viewer with a gaping mouth, hands clasped to it's skull-like visage. The strange looking figure is undoubtedly the focal point, situated in the immediate foreground. Then our eye takes in the rest of the painting. My eyes follow a route anti-clockwise, beginning from the screaming figure, along the dramatically angled planks of the bridge to the two anonymous, almost transparent figures in the middle distance who are cut off by the edge of the picture frame. Then our eye flows across the undulating sky which seems to merge with, and into the water and landscape below and we return back at this solitary figure. I find it difficult to leave this image as my eye continuously moves round and round. I am prevented from leaving the boundaries of the painting by the cut-off ...

See this essay or coursework document in full right now