The pictures on our walls

The pictures on our walls are distorted mirrors.

I had this thought when studying Stendhal’s Le Rouge et Le Noir (The Red and the Black) at university.

The story follows Julien Sorel, a young man from provincial 19^th century France hungry for social advancement.

Julien hides a portrait of Napoleon Bonaparte under his bed. He greatly admires the French leader, seeing in him the ambition, power and strength that he himself aspires to embody.

This got me thinking about my own posters as a child.

Therapists talk about the notion of ‘projection’. In psychoanalysis, projection is a process whereby individuals attribute or ‘project’ their own thoughts, feelings, or impulses onto someone else. It’s a nifty way to determine someone’s true character – analyse what they criticise or glorify, it’s usually a reflection of their innermost self.

Kim Rossi Stuart's Julien Sorel in the 1997 adaptation of The Red and the Black

The posters on our walls display this to some extent. They are archetypal representations of qualities that exist within us.

I’ll never forget my first Cristiano Ronaldo poster. It was so enormous that it came in three separate sheets. When I aligned and stuck them to my wall, the whole thing was the size of a door.

I remember wearing my football kit and Nike Mercurial Vapors, gazing up at the man believing that some of his qualities dwelled within me; he represented a distorted aspect of my identity.    

In post-Napoleonic France, there was much controversy surrounding Napoleon’s legacy. Julien hides the portrait under his bed because expressing support for Napoleon may have been seen as a sign of political dissent.

I like this image. This physical representation of a young boy hiding a part of himself in order to get ahead in the world.