Camera obscura | Lucida - Light in a darkened room.

A new fronton in gilded bas-reliëf over the entrance of “Landfort House”, 18th c. Country estate and museum. An anatomical transparent eye observing "nature" on its left , projecting it upside down to its right. An image about cognition and observation of “the world” and “the other”. . . the external and the internal.

To celebrate the end of several years of extensive restorations on the house, its interior and the surrounding parks and gardens, and finally its opening to the public, The Landfort Heritage Foundation invited Peter Korver to design a new artwork for the fronton above the entrance of this historic country estate or "Buitenplaats".

“Eyes have played an important role of healing and saving in this house’s history on several occasions” was a remark made during the initial discussions on this project… hinting at the early 19th century when the house and its gardens were revived and expanded to their current proportions and lay-outs by a successful eye surgeon and his wealthy family .. yet also reminding the fact todays extensive restorations have been facilitated by a generous donor having made his fortune in the development of eye surgery techniques.

But the the eye was first and foremost taken as point of departure and main motif in the new fronton because “looking” and “seeing” has always been an important aspekt of a country estate like this. Looking at ..the garden .. nature . .. the world .. “Reading and interpreting the book of nature” was an important part of life here, a metaphor for the early modern study of the natural sciences from the late 17th century on. The period known as “the Enlightenment”- the years roughly between Descartes and Darwin - was also the heyday of the Dutch country estate or “Buitenplaats”..

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Eyes used as symbol or emblem have a long and rich cv in art history, and so in frontons where they basically always have a religious meaning as the “all seeing eye of God”.
This Eye however, is different in almost every aspect. The “iris” has been transformed into a hollow dish containing the eye’s internal anatomy seen sideways. Therefore this eye doesn’t confront the viewer but internalizes the world, observing what’s on the left, projecting it upside down to its right, as that’s the way eye optics work. leaving the rest to interpretations of the mind.

There is some trace of divinity left though, as the hollow iris subtly brings to mind those dark cavities left in the bronze eyes of antique (demi)god statues, having lost at some point their original inlayed iris of iridescent gemstone or coloured glas.

The title of the work hints not just at the basic optical principle underlying our eyes as well as photo-camera’s, but also more indirectly at the idea that ever since the late 17th and 18th century enlightenment, only the human mind is considered to be conscious, assuming all other organisms somehow experience their life and reality “as in the dark”..

The enlightened inquisitive mindset with all its analytic scepsis has basically switched the lights off in the minds of all other life on earth. It has brought mankind sheer endless knowledge “about” the world and the “other” . . . but has left him too often alienated from it ..

So if this new eye of Landfort house would reflect some aspect of healing .. this just might be because it doesn't look ahead, but turns its attention to what’s living directly by its side.