Pareidolia is a psychological phenomenon in which the mind responds to a stimulus, usually an image or a sound, by perceiving a familiar pattern where none exists. (Wikipedia [Online] Available from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia [Accessed 05/06/18]).
It is often thought that it can be a child game – to see the unintended images in the sky, in your plate with eggs, in the line of mountains or in veins on your body, however, this sensory illusion can be a tool in master’s hands.

Max Ernst, The Eye of Silence, 1943 ©Max Ernst https://www.wikiart.org/en/max-ernst/the-eye-of-silence-1943
Thus Max Ernst in ‘The Eye of Silence’ 1943 tried to understand and analyze the difference between deliberate and casual images used a technique – called decalcomania. Together with Hans Bellmer “they experimented with the … decalcomania, which had been invented by Oscar Dominguez in 1935. … As in frottage, the irregularity of the resulting paint surface suggests images which the artist develops into final form.
It is a children's game. Attach an empty tin can to a thread a metre or two long, punch a small hole in the bottom, fill the can with paint, liquid enough to flow freely. Let the can swing from the end of the thread over a piece of canvas resting on a flat surface, then change the direction of the can by movements of the hands, arms, shoulder and entire body. Surprising lines thus drip upon the canvas. The play of association then begins?”
MaxErnst: a retrospective, (1975), Solomon R. Guggan enheim Museum, New York, pp. 53-54 [online] Available from: https://archive.org/details/maxer00erns [Accessed 06/06/2018]

Unintended places of this painting come across like ruins of the city, walls or some mystical mountains. I think we also can create a parallel to Max Ernst’s earlier series of a forest. This subject was adopted since Ernst’s childhood, for instance, in ‘Forest and Dove’ 1927 we can find a similar landscape with a partial image of the sky. Such a comparison can give as an idea that probably some elements technically were created unintended but overall scenery was conceived before.
Max Ernst, Forest and Dove, 1927 ©Max Ernst https://www.wikiart.org/en/max-ernst/forest-and-dove-1927
Ernst gave a name for this work - The Eye of Silence, which already leads us to ‘final destination’ to what we should see and feel – the eye and silence. Since these two elements are already given we tend to find in the middle of the painting something which is round and most likely interpreted as an eye. Similar situation with silence, if the author told us – it should be silence, not melancholy, not sadness but silence, although different people can bear in mind a variety of feelings regarding this image, here viewer tend to agree with Max Ernst emotion (this is a different discussion of the title in the art piece). Seems that ‘eyes’, sky and image of a lady in the lower right corner were refined with intention as we can identify their clearly.
On one hand, it seems that an artist always will work with intention unless he is under the drugs or meditation. Intention can be a conscious decision of shadows and light or consciously given a name which influencing all perception of the art object.
On the other hand, the sky or shape of mountains, it is another concept or better to say there is no concept at all. Probably only one stone fell and disclosed a shape. After that, some desirous can thoroughly to peer and find a human face or object which already have been seen in reality.
Can we see in the ambiguity something what we have never seen before – rather not because then this element can’t be named, it is unknown, it cannot be identified and distinguished out of a plane mass of a matter. But in artwork, an author can create a unique, unprecedented sample, something that was never present in the earth.
Can an artist be free out of this ‘natural’, named patterns? I think, rather yes, and ‘The eye of silence’ is a good example of intended pareidolia created by a human being as a part of nature.
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