Abstract: Iconographies and precise references to masterpieces of European art can today be found within globalized creations, by authors who (also) incorporate other continents’ visual and symbolic cultures. In this way some European ‚iconic‘ works end up providing the plot for an encounter/clash between significant contexts which are profoundly different, giving life to alienating yet familiar images. If the citation of a painting that is accredited in Western historiography attracts a large audience, the sedimentation within it of ‚other‘ traditions often remains obscured; the painting becomes the victim of a lack of curiosity, the unfortunate inheritance of contemporary visual education. Restrained by European artistic standards or, in any case, prisoner of a separation between cultures which has by now diminished, the eye is unable to ’see‘ beyond what it already knows. A completely different perspective must emerge, restoring value and equal interest to the multilateral symbolic and iconographic structures that such works propose, applying a method of ‘iconological investigation’ not only to the analysis of the modules of Western origin, but also to those of ‚other‘ origins. In this vein, an ideal laboratory is offered by the work of Harmonia Rosales (American with Afro-Cuban roots). Rosales deconstructs the Eurocentric imaginary of myths while bringing forth her own multicultural background, imposing ‚figures‘ where classical heritage, traces of Santeria and the Yoruba tradition mix. Her work has at times been received as a suggestive twisting of Western masterpieces, but what would happen if we evaluated its meaning from the other symbolic contexts which permeate it? How would we read Rosales if we illuminated the dark half – that is, the ‚other‘ half – of her symbolic universe?  And what would remain of the concept of otherness, when faced with the results? The present work aims to be an experiment in critical decolonization of the gaze.