Internal and external space in a cult image: the static aura forestalls their folding, divided by the ‘mandorla’ with its maternal associations that creates a theatrical screen-space ‘behind’ (continued infinitely at the bottom), a still sea giving birth to an ornately frozen golden sculpture. The figures, reaching out, are positioned on continents drifting apart from each other. If they were not held by this ‘middle’ they could give life to the lines of flight that have been arrested with the abstraction and representation around the middle figure.
Realism in central perspective