Seeing faces in artwork

The Saint Louis Art Museum is full of faces. From ancient sculptures to more-contemporary canvases, artists use human figures for storytelling. Sometimes, you can also find faces in unexpected places. This tendency is called pareidolia—a phenomenon where the brain creates patterns in unrelated visual information to make sense of it. Throughout the museum, my brain interpreted these ordinary objects to look like faces. Can you find the same faces in these nonhuman objects from SLAM’s collection?

Dish and Spoon by Charles Robert Ashbee 

The pieces in Charles Robert Ashbee’s Dish and Spoon complete each other. Separated, this dish and spoon appear ordinary. As a pair, the silver set smiles. The dish’s polished and curved silver reflects the spoon, creating a small arc that resembles a grin. In the galleries, Dish and Spoon smile like the Mona Lisa stares. Depending on where I stood, the dish reflected a different smile back at me. From the side of the object, the dish smirked, and from the front, it presented a warm and welcoming smile. Small circles of silver where the handles are welded to the body of the dish produce a pair of wide-set eyes. And finally, the handles of the dish outstretch like arms opening for a hug to welcome the spoon.  

This work is on view in Gallery 122.  

Covered Wine Vessel (hu) with Design of Animals

This Covered Wine Vessel made in China’s Eastern Zhou dynasty is one of six similar bronzes known to exist. Intricate copper inlays of dragon-headed snakes, reclining deer, and horned feline beasts lend the bronze vessel to a close-up study you can only experience in the galleries. Standing farther away, however, I viewed the bronze vessel as a bold and somewhat sassy figure. Three upright rings on the lid create two equidistant eyes and a vertical nose. The meeting point of the lid and the body of the vessel form a mouth, finishing the face; two handles on the sides of the bronze act as elbow joints and forearms. The ends of the handles fall on the widest part of the vessel, as if the object has its hands on its hips. Personified, Covered Wine Vessel reminds me of the puppets from TV shows and movies I watched as a kid. 

This work is on view in Bakewell Gallery 233. 

In Beige with Sand by Robert Motherwell 

Did this collage wink at me? Robert Motherwell’s In Beige with Sand is not representational, and the lack of subject allows viewers to find their own meaning. Personally, I found a face within Motherwell’s collage. The two gray circles near the top of the painting are eyes. On the right, a white circle within a larger gray circle acts like the eyeball and eyelid. And if the gray color is the eyelid, then the left eye is closed, posing the face in a permanent wink. The mouth, created with a red-and-black oval, smiles wide. Block stripes of yellow, white, and blue imitate teeth. I understand yellow and blue teeth aren’t normal, but hear me out. The yellow stripe represents a golden crown over a cavity, and the blue stripe could be food stuck in their teeth (maybe explaining their need for a crown). The winking, wide-smiling face is growing facial hair beneath their mouth, represented with a thin black squiggle.  

This work is on view in Gallery 333.  

Roof Finial by a Kanak Artist 

This Roof Finial was the most visible elements of a Kanak grand chief’s house. At the end of a long, central village pathway, the finial acted like the “face” of the chief’s residence, piercing into the sky and establishing the house as the most important structure. Across the gallery, the Roof Finial served its purpose and caught my eye. I immediately felt the object looking back at me through the glass case. Two carved loops make up the eyes, a downward-facing triangle creates a nose, and the upward arch emulates a smiling mouth. With a happy face, the Roof Finial suggests the chief’s home is a welcoming place. 

This work is on view in Morton D. May and Louis D. Beaumont Gallery 106 

Ashtray Cigarette Composition by Hans Finsler 

Groupings of three circles lead my mind to picture a face—two eyes and a mouth. Hans Finsler’s Ashtray Cigarette Composition turns six dishes into two faces. In the top-left corner, three ashtrays with ledges for handles form the first face. These ledges appear as eyelids, making the face’s gaze softer. The face on the bottom has their head tilted to the left. While the eyes are oddly stacked on each other, the cigarette in the third dish signifies that it’s the mouth because it’s smoking. The white background makes me imagine these faces as two friends standing outside in the middle of a snowy winter day to take a smoking break. 

This work can be viewed by request in the Print Study Room. 

Almost Led By My Tie by Jessica Stockholder 

The bright colors of Jessica Stockholder’s Almost Led By My Tie give the object a playful, animated quality—like the art originated from a children’s movie. This liveliness makes humanizing the art easier. Almost Led By My Tie reminds me of a cartoon crab, snail, or frog. The green hangers pop out from its head with screws mounting the object to the wall, creating perky eyes. A smile forms from the angular arch at the bottom of the yellow container. The blue dripping wax reminds me of makeovers I would give to my toys. Like marker I drew on my doll’s face, the blue wax feels like a visible reminder that this object was loved. Together, Almost Led By My Tie presents a quirky and loveable face.  

Sword Guard (tsuba) with Openwork Design of Two Lotus Leaves

The Asian art collection has hundreds of Japanese sword guards from 1615 to 1868, and I think you could find facial features in many of them. My eyes drew me into this Sword Guard because of the asymmetrical mouth and triangular eyes. On this Sword Guard, two iron lotus leaves intersect to form a melancholic face. On the sides of the face, two rounded triangles intimidate droopy eyes. A long, isosceles triangle splits the space between the two eyes to create a slender nose. Finally, a small, off-center hole in the iron lotus leaf looks like a whistling mouth. In my imagination, I picture Sword Guard whistling a soothing melody to the soldier who wears it.