#sometimes it takes a while to percolate things through my brain y'know.

[library-windows]

Stuck home today on account of my agonies and decided to throw in my two cents on the Pentiment soundtrack album cover art with its many references, 'cause like . . . why the hell not

These are my own interpretations, take them with a grain of salt.

There are SPOILERS for Pentiment through Act III behind the cut.

☞ Andreas

Andreas is holding gentian (blue) and edelweiss (white), both Alpine flowers. One of the symbolic meanings for gentian is "justice"; and one meaning for edelweiss is "dedication" (another is "sacrifice").

In his other hand, Andreas is holding a blank scrap of parchment -- symbolizing the player's ability to make choices and help define the story.

☞ On the table

The bound codex is pretty self-explanatory with the game's motif of books, both manuscripts/codices and printed books.

The snail on the book is possibly emblematic of the much slower, more labor-intensive process of making manuscripts over printing, but I suspect it's actually a joke about the number of giant snails that pop up in medieval marginalia. (Inkulinati also invokes the giant snails and Andreas.)

The broken hammer symbolizes the murder of Otto, the town carpenter.

The ornate clock ties into the clock that's been built in Act III, replacing the liturgical hours as a measure of time with a 24-hour clock; and on a larger scale, symbolizing the shift from late medieval to early modern. The beetle appears to be standing on a miniature sundial and climbing from it onto the clock, reinforcing the emphasis on a shift in how time is measured and conceived.

The beetle itself looks like a direct reference to Albrecht Dürer's "Stag Beetle". Rather than treating the insect as a memento mori based on the association of insects with decay and death, Dürer painted a study of a beetle with careful attention to its appearance, as an observation of the actual critter rather than making the beetle into a symbol of anything. As far as the Pentiment art goes, this inclusion along with the clock shows some of the shift in mindset from medieval to early modern/renaissance vis-à-vis its relationship to nature, as well as Andreas' (possible) interest in the natural world. -> Dürer was also from Nuremberg, and he sure has a certain physical resemblance to Andreas (check his "Self-Portrait at 26" in the wiki link); he also gets name-dropped early in the game, if you have the Craftsman background and ask the baron who the artist was that he saw painting the emperor's portrait.

There's a pen, a stylus, and a pen knife on the table, along with the spilled red ink that recalls blood.

The gold coins could have multiple symbolic meanings -- they could indicate that Andreas is a professional/master artist and, by this point in the story, a man of wealth (especially given their position between some of the tools of his trade). They could also symbolize the competing financial demands of Kiersau Abbey (since again, these were the tools of its major source of income) and the people of Tassing. Either way they represent a link between art and money.

☞ The wall/window

Beatrice, St. Grobian, Socrates, and Prester John can be seen in the carving behind Andreas' shoulder.

The notes sent to the murder suspects in Act I and II are hanging from the curtains. Ferenc's is the top one that is partially burned; Ottilia's and Lucky's are also visible, along with the one that Andreas receives at the end of Act I warning him not to return and, I think, the one that Claus receives in Act III. (The exception is the note that Matilda received, which is under the clock on the table; assuming she's not accused of the murder, Matilda is the only one of the Act I suspects who's still living in Tassing in Act III when the Rathaus clock is built.) The notes are tied together with a red cord/thread that also leads to a key; this references the mastermind behind the murders, the Thread-Puller.

Moths represent transformation, and the three stages of their life (larva, pupa, adult) could line up with the three acts of the game and Andreas therein (youth, withdrawn and depressed, and ultimately breaking out of that chrysalis to be free); but I think another form of moth symbolism that lines up with Andreas himself is the proverbial "moth to a flame", where a moth will find itself compelled to fly toward a light (or a fire) even when that means destroying itself. [Addendum] The moth has two pairs of eyespots, and is placed with the notes/key/thread; it could also represent Father Thomas, an unassuming and seemingly harmless person, who is nevertheless positioned to observe the secrets of both Tassing and Kiersau.

The winged bull, a symbol of St. Luke (patron of artists, as you can learn from the in-game glossary) is confirmed by the artist to be an actual pentiment -- it's painted over a tauroctony, a motif in the Roman cult of Mithras that shows Mithras killing a bull. Obviously this ties directly into the events of the final act of the game where Andreas and Magdalene discover the Mithraeum and how the Roman ruins were reinterpreted as Christian relics. If you were to 'erase' the pentiment to reveal the original drawing, it would show Mithras (central figure of an Imperial Roman cult) killing the bull that had been remade into an image of the Christian figure St. Luke -- mirroring Father Thomas' fear that revealing the historical truth would "kill" the faith of Tassing. -> It's possibly worth pointing out here that Mithras, as worshipped by the Romans, was himself syncretized from an ancient Iranian god; to quote Wikipedia, "The Romans attributed their Mithraic mysteries to Zoroastrian Persian sources relating to Mithra. Since the early 1970s, the dominant scholarship has noted dissimilarities between the Persian and Roman traditions, making it, at most, the result of Roman perceptions of Zoroastrian ideas." [bolding mine] So there's that.

Roses had already had a long association with love and beauty in both medieval and renaissance art, and in particular they often symbolized divine love when paired with devotional images.

The arched windows recall the shape of the aqueduct and the other Roman ruins in Tassing.

Mausfänger (or possibly Son of Mausfänger) is sitting on the windowsill.

The dead bird symbolizes the murdered Baron Rothvogel, whose name literally means "red bird"; outside of it being a repeated phrase in the notes themselves, Andreas can mention this euphemism if you find Ferenc's note and ask him about it. The bird itself is a robin, and at least via Shakespeare, the robin was sometimes associated with constantly singing to woo females.

Part of the Totentanz / Dance of Death from the abbey chapterhouse is reproduced on the lower wall panel behind Andreas.

The lute and pipe represent Alkemie, who did the music for Pentiment (this is the soundtrack album art, after all).

☞ The background

The waterfall in the mountains recalls the mystical spring that's venerated in Tassing's various histories as the point of its founding/salvation.

Kiersau Abbey is visible in the background.

A labyrinth is also visible through through the window, between Andreas and the abbey. This represents Andreas' own mental labyrinth, with the crowned symbol for mercury at the center. Mercury represented the mind in medieval alchemy. It also could represent the local church of Tassing (distinct from the abbey), Our Lady of the Labyrinth, which venerates an icon of the Virgin Mary holding a labyrinth that in turn is derived from the Mithraic labyrinth symbols in the Roman ruins. The church lies physically between Tassing and Kiersau, as the labyrinth here sits between Andreas in the foreground and Kiersau in the background. -> While the story Father Thomas tells Magdalene about the church's labyrinth is made up for the game, labyrinths do exist in Christian tradition as a form of meditation, where a person follows a single path to the center while meditating or praying (either physically along an actual path or by following the path in an image); though Pentiment is also referencing the labyrinthine abbey library in The Name of the Rose, which is similarly at the center of multiple murders committed in order to hide forbidden knowledge.

In medieval art, the owl was most often a symbol of misfortune, as it appeared only at night; that it seemed to prefer darkness over light also made it a symbol of non-believers. The tree the owl is perched in is a gigantic oak, which is likely the same tree where the shrine to St. Satia is; if you talk to Marie and Bert in the forest in Act I, Marie can tell Andreas more about the shrine's oak tree and how it's venerated. [Addendum] Subjectively, the owl's physical shape also recalls the shape of Sister Amalie's habit, with its rounded head and bulky body; Amalie also emerges only at night to 'hunt', i.e. to deliver messages. She is also metaphorically 'in darkness' through Father Thomas' manipulation.

The skull in the moon is a memento mori; the sky outside is between night and dawn, which would more or less match the time at which Rothvogel, Otto, and Claus were all attacked. Also: moon's haunted