He Sees You When You're Sleeping

I thank Waldemar Januszczak for introducing me to the conspiracy theory (first expressed in Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell's graphic novel From Hell) that Nicholas Hawksmoor's churches in London are layed out so as to sketch an enormous 'eye of Horus' symbol (or "Wedjet") across a map of the capital. Though the symbol originally - that is, in Ancient Egyptian theology - symbolised divine protection; Januszczak equates it with the sinister, almost phantasmagoric, atmosphere that is the defining feature of Hawksmoor's architecture. At some point in history the symbol of the 'All-Seeing eye' or the 'Eye of Providence', of which the "Wedjet" is but an early example, turned from being a symbol of reassurance and consolidation - God is watching us - to a symbol of obscurity and paranoia - "we're being watched! And they know something that we don't."

The sea change probably happened sometime during the life span of the symbol's most recent typology: the 'eye-with-radiating-striae', which is occasionally also surrounded by clouds. A famous example is the one which appears on the back of a U.S. Dollar bill. This eye appears above a incomplete pyramid, with 13 steps representing the 13 established states contemporary with the image's first use (1782). The implication is that God will oversee America's progress from these foundations towards some peak of perfection. The striae indicate the dynamism - and thus the phenomenal power - of His sight. The markedly similar eye which appears in stone on the facade of Edinburgh's Oddfellows' Hall radiates a slightly less utopian vision, but still implicates God as a mighty overseer of the Hall's credibly ambitious project: to provide a guild for workers of all trades in a society that had not yet benefitted from the introduction of the Welfare State.





Perhaps it was the influence of the Eye that allowed for the completion of the building of America, and that ushered in the British Welfare State. Perhaps not. But it is in the wake of these advances that the eye's use as a symbol of reassurance has waned. In 2000, the first traditionally-manufactured Absinthe to be distilled in France since the drink's prohibition in 1915 was produced by La Fée. As their logo, they chose...the Eye of Providence. By the turn of the millennium, Absinthe had acquired a reputation as an edgy, bohemian drink which could induce hallucinogenic effects. It was associated with the decadent Fin-de-Siècle visions of Wilde, Beardsley, Redon, Toulouse-Lautrec. In short, it was known to flirt with the phantasmagoric. And so La Fée chose a symbol that summed all this up in a neat and sexy fashion: the Eye.

How did this happen exactly? How did a symbol for divine intervention become a shorthand for bohemian experimentalism? Well, I suppose that divine intervention, in our increasingly secular society, is seen as something simultaneously wacky and oppressive (the same could be said for the experience of drinking Absinthe). And there is admittedly something inherently trippy about the symbol: a single eye is a disruption, and ripe for exploitation as something fantastical. Just look at Redon's bizarre 1882 lithograph, "The Eye, Like a Strange Balloon, Moves Towards Infinity", which the artist dedicated to Edgar Allen Poe:


Of course, the symbol's most notable current use is as a logo for one of the most most wacky and oppressive of all contemporary phenomena: Big Brother. Our post-19th Century disillusion with the Eye of Providence has moved on: we now take up the role ourselves and twist it towards voyeuristic schadenfreude. We relish the obscurity and the paranoia. They're being watched! And we know something that they don't.