Nathanael Miller, 24 April 2025
Jack Vettriano’s brilliant 1992 painting of four unidentifiable people slyly forces the viewer to actively choose which one of at least three different stories to focus on.
The Singing Butler is a remarkably deceptive piece of work—and therein lies Vettriano’s genius. Hidden within this stylish piece of narrative art is an almost subtle command for the viewer to provide the narrative context.
In other words, the viewer has to decide what the painting means; they can’t just look at it, safely bathed in the artist’s mindset. Nope; they have to see it and, therefore, think it over. The viewer must take all the elements and decide what is their point of focus…and the point of focus they choose determines their point of view.
The Singing Butler shows four figures, one of whom is very close to us, the other three just slightly farther away than he is, but those three are on the same plane. We can’t see any faces; all the heads are turned away. We might get a partial nose, but that’s it.
The four stand under a cloudy sky on a windswept beach. The sand seems wet with rain. The two outer figures are a maid and a butler (the butler is closest to us). They are clearly being buffeted by the wind, with the maid seeming about ready to stumble. Their clothes are windswept.
The inner figures are a young couple wearing expensive clothes while dancing carelessly. These two are heedless of the world around them; her dress isn’t even ruffled by the bellicose wind.
At first glance, this picture might engender anger. How dare that fancy rich couple dance while their servants suffer in the weather?!
This interpretation springs from a point of focus on the larger scene, the scene as seen made only of the broad-brush details we gleam we first glance at something.
However, Vettriano’s skill as an “evil genius” lies in wait for us!
We’ve now seen one story (the callous rich ignoring the suffering laborers) through our point of focus, and this determined that our point of view was one of contempt for the callous rich.
However, now that we’re looking at the painting, a new detail registers in our minds: the dancing woman’s dress isn’t even ruffled by the bellicose wind. It’s almost as if she’s not even there. She and her consort cast shadows and reflections in the watery sand…but the wind doesn’t touch her (or even, it seems, him).
Are we looking at a callous rich couple? Perhaps we’re seeing two old servants lost in their memories of a young couple they loved, but who died young?
Is The Singing Butler a visual allegory of Man and Woman suffering the storms of life when alone (the servants being knocked around by the wing), but how a healthy relationship unites Man and Woman as a team easily overcoming such storms (the dancers)?
One painting can potentially tell you at least three different stories using the exact same elements and composition (or the same bare facts). The story you see depends on your point of focus.
Your point of focus provides the context necessary to unite the separate elements (bare facts) into a coherent narrative. Once you decide on your point of focus, your point of view (your opinion and attitude) about the narrative is created.
Our memories contain all the elements of the life story we’re recording, so we can retell it to ourselves later. Some memories are so sharp as to be realistically interpreted only one way. A joyful memory of discovering the world’s biggest, tubbiest, fluffiest teddy bear under the Christmas tree by a happy eight-year-old is probably guaranteed to be seen as a ‘good and healthy’ event by reasonable people .
However, the same is true of traumatic events. The first time I was assaulted in the Navy (the guy was honked off because I was named shop supervisor and not him) is clearly and quite reasonably the definition of a “bad and unhealthy” event. The fact that my senior leadership then told me I needed to “learn to listen to people” makes that event in 2005 go from “bad and unhealthy” to “freaking catastrophic.”
The assault and victim-blaming are clearly damaging; those are facts. However, I can still choose the interpretation of those facts (my point of view) by actively choosing my point of focus.
If I focus on the assault (the shock, the terror, the pain, the disbelief at literally being locked in a room), then the memory’s a bit of a downer, to put it mildly.
If, however, I focus on the fact I was crafty enough to break out of there by getting a window loose using scissors and a quarter for screwdrivers, then, suddenly, the event has a more ‘hero cleverly outwitting the bad guys” adventure-movie vibe.
If I focus on my leadership victim-blaming me, and then throwing me right back into a physically hostile workcenter, the story goes right past being a “downer” to being “downright depressing.”
If, however, If focus on the fact I maintained control of that workcenter despite the threat, and that I began actively studying up on what legal recourses I actually had (the Navy did get much better on teaching junior sailors as my career progressed) so I could protect myself in the future—suddenly we’re in a political thriller where the hero has to play a long game, but one that has the potential to render his enemies irrelevant and powerless by their own hands, while he then takes the brass ring.
All the same elements (facts) are there, and none of these interpretations (points of view) deny the pain generated by any of those elements. However, by choosing to focus on my crafty and obstinate ability (and decision) to survive and overcome, I create myself a path to finally navigate the powerfully negative emotions those events generated—emotions I had to suppress in 2005 and couldn’t begin revisiting until 2025.
Choosing the point of focus doesn’t mean we create a narrative untethered to the facts; it means choosing to view the story in a way that contributes to a healthy and realistic image of ourselves while creating a proactive path forward.
Let’s be clear. A true “path forward” requires us to feel through any pain we might be holding as stored chemical energy (see my previous essay), but it also offers us a chance to eventually transform that experience into something positive.
After all, do you want to focus on what helps you get on with living, or that which will only help you get on with dying?
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