Magic? No – Quantum Mechanics posits that it’s the painting which is altered by the perceptions of all who view it, as are ALL things perceived. Even if the QM interpretation is hard to grasp, the perception of anything is a mental construct and we all construct uniquely. Our constructs are a function of our belief systems’ filters and we see what expect (create) or as in Simon & Garfunkel’s The Boxer a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.

FWIW the first thing I thought of when I saw the painting was a stereotypical Madonna & Child similar to 15th century renaissance images of the same. The bird’s-eye partial bird inset confounded me and looked like it was superimposed on a globe depicting the West Coast of North America; I wonder about its symbolism.

Perhaps it didn’t remind me of my father and me when I was little, due to the strained relationship I had vis-à-vis my parents (I left home at 14 and didn’t reconcile with them until I was 25) so my particular filters reject generational images on first blush, but upon retuning as it were, I can tap into the cliché except that I see the adult as female and the child androgynous.