Painter Of The Night: Yoon Seungho’s gaze: the mirror of his soul (part 2)

This is where you can read the manhwa. https://www.lezhin.com/en/comic/painter 

But be aware that this manhwa is a mature Yaoi, which means, it is about homosexuality with explicit scenes.

In the first part, I explained the importance of Seungho’s gaze. Through his gaze, we could perceive his inner thoughts and emotions. However, what caught my attention is that the first part contained mostly scenes where Seungho is either furious or jealous. This time, I wanted to focus on scenes where either other emotions are visible and palpable for the readers or Byeonduck used certain effects so that the beholder even becomes one with the main lead Yoon Seungho.

I chose this drawing from the chapter 22. Here, we can see a genuinely happy protagonist.

He is not just smiling, his gaze exudes a certain gentleness and care. Furthermore, his words reinforce this impression as he is giving an advice. He had just kept the young artist from falling. For the first time, the reader can witness a change in the lord’s behavior. If we compare it to the smile from the first chapter, we observe a difference as he is no longer acting like an obsessed or crazy fan full of excitement because he is able to meet his idol. In the chapter 22, the seme is oozing sincerity, warmth and more importantly calmness. That’s why he has been patient with the low-born. All this has been triggered by the night spent with Baek Na-Kyum. All this outlines the importance of their “wedding night” and that he has experienced something new. He felt loved although it was just an illusion and deep down, Seungho was hoping that this wasn’t a dream. Baek Na-Kyum’s words during that night expressed what the seme felt too.

For both of them, it was as if a dream had come true: they are finally loved and accepted as they are. It is no surprise that Seungho said nothing during that night as he is not someone who expresses himself so openly about his feelings. The change of attitude was already announced by this gesture as he personally took care of the uke. This revealed that the protagonist had been keeping an eye on the low-born which we didn’t see. Striking is that after helping him and showing him such a nice and gentle smile, the painter thanks him and the reader is unable to see Yoon Seungho’s face.

Now, it is left to the reader’s imagination what kind of reaction the lord has on his face, when he hears the grateful words coming from the uke. I doubt that the genuine smile and the warm gaze vanished, he must have kept oozing happiness which must have caught the teacher’s attention. Pay attention that the low noble is turning his head to the side’s and his eyes are looking behind, in the artist’s direction. However, I am quite sure that by doing so, he must have seen the smiling face of his sponsor. This explains why Jung In-Hun had such a gloomy face after this incident. Not only Yoon Seungho had personally prevented the painter from falling but the former had even talked to him in a gentle tone, while the noble had ignored his guest for the hunt all this time. He must have felt totally humiliated as he is a noble, whereas Baek Na-Kyum is a low-born. As you can see, the gaze the powerful noble had gives a lot away about his inner feelings: it announces his transformation which was triggered by this memorable night. That’s why the lord wants the painter to remember their night together.

Then I chose the scene in the chapter 28, where Baek Na-Kyum is coerced to give the angry seme a blow-job.

Notice that this drawing is made as if there is an invisible spectator, as if there was a camera filming the scene and the beholder is a peeping Tom. However, this suddenly changes because now, the perspective is different. We see the blow-job from the master’s perspective. There is no invisible narrator or spectator.

Byeonduck uses a certain technique to let the readers enter the master’s eyes. We are now seeing from the lord’s view, until the perspective abruptly changes one more time.

Now, the “camera” zooms on the lord’s face so that we are seeing the affect the view had on Yoon Seungho. Through this alternation of perspectives, the readers are able to perceive what Seungho is actually feeling. Moreover, this outlines the affect Baek Na-Kyum has on the lord.

Now, you can observe that the zoom is now focusing on Baek Na-Kyum’s head and the lord’s hand. We are here again witnessing it from the master’s perspective. The beholder has entered deep in the lord’s mind and it was as if he would caress himself the painter’s hair. We are ones with the protagonist, we see and stroke the uke too.

However, Seungho can’t help himself looking at the uke’s face and what catches him by surprise is the painter’s gaze. In this gaze, he can view himself but also perceive the painter’s unconscious. Notice that the uke is not looking angry or scared or upset like at the beginning of the scene, so Yoon Seungho feels that Baek Na-Kyum is no longer rejecting him, he shows no disgust as well. The master witnesses with his own eyes that Baek Na-Kyum has been affected by the blow job as well. Our seme is deeply affected by the gaze given by the uke hence he is cumming right after. This explains why the lord told him after that they would use the mirror so that the painter would see his own facial expressions. He should stop pushing him away as his gaze revealed a different reaction. As you can see, the painter’s gaze was also the mirror of the low-born’s soul. Both unveil attraction, desire and love. No wonder why the lord showed his own gaze in the mirror, when they were having that sex marathon.

He wanted the uke to notice his soul too so that the painter would perceive the lord’s true longing and personality.

And he was not wrong with this move because this triggered the painter’s memory. He remembered the gaze he saw in his wet dream, where his unconscious expressed his desire to have sex with the master.

The lord’s gaze had an hypnotic effect, he definitely freed him from the brainwashing he suffered from Jung In-Hun which he hasn’t realized yet. On the other hand, the gaze given by the blow-job reinforced the impression that Baek Na-Kyum was not really rejecting him despite his claims and gestures. The gaze betrayed him, revealed his true desires.

The next scene where the lord’s gaze marked another turning point in the love story is the next blow-job. In the chapter 36, when Baek Na-Kyum enters his chamber, we see an exhausted noble.

He had almost given up on the painter before until he saw his blushing which gave him some small hope hence he had ordered him to paint in his chamber that night. Striking is the contrast of the emotions between the two main characters. Whereas the lord looks emotionless and indifferent due to his exhaustion, the painter is feeling excited. His heart is bumping loudly and he has an erection which underlines the affect the noble’s presence has. Here, the master is definitely not seducing him with his gaze or body, he is immobile and indifferent. However, the moment Yoon Seungho notices the uke’s erection, the nature of his gaze switches:

It was as if a fire had been ignited, life came back. There is a light reflecting in his eyes which wasn’t there before. The dormant volcano is now erupting again, however this is not like the explosive Mount Vesuvius’ eruption that destroyed the town Pompei, rather like an effusive eruption of the Mount de la Fournaise (On the Island La Réunion) which is less dangerous as lava steadily flows out of a volcano onto the ground. That’s why he doesn’t force himself like at the pavilion but prefers pleasuring the painter. He is controlling his emotions that way he can nurture his relationship with the low-born. As you know, lava is a good fertilizer hence Seungho ensures that Baek Na-Kyum is slowly accepting him as his partner.

As you can recognize, the author Byeonduck paid a lot of the attention to the chronology of her drawings and each picture has a purpose. The focus on Seungho’s gaze is no coincidence because they reveal each time something important, or the switch of perspective is to let the reader perceive what the characters are thinking , observing or even feeling. We had another example of this in the chapter 39. Here, the tailor’s hand on Baek Na-Kyum’s body represents the perspective of the noble and through the switch of perspective, the reader is able to enter the noble’s mind and read his thoughts: he is jealous and dislikes what he is seeing. This explicates why the sensitive readers have come to love the seme because we were seeing the events from his perspective and feel his own emotions and turmoil.

So now, if you read the story again, pay attention to the perspective and the chronology of the pictures. That way, you’ll notice how detail-oriented the author of this manhwa was. Through her pictures, you could feel the emotions of the characters.

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