The German phylosopher Arthur Schopenhauer wrot of what he called 'the will' a sort of inner restlesness driven by our biological need to eat and pro-create. He went on to speculate that everything we see is filtered through this gaze . If this is the case we never truly see until this 'will' is switched off , or as Schopenhauer called it we enter a state of 'will-lessness'. This painting represents the two alternate states, the pragmatic 'will' and the transcendental state of 'will-lessness'. There is also another more sinister thread going on here.