Author: Karl Smallwood / Source: Today I Found Out
Mark B. asks: How do artists making paintings with people that have eyes that follow you around the room?
Art as they say, is subjective, what one person considers a priceless masterpiece others might see as nothing more than a giant black square… But there’s one very specific kind of painting that most everyone sees the same way- the kind with the weird eyes that seem to follow you around the room.
So what causes this optical illusion of sorts and how do artists achieve this effect?It turns out, for even a moderately skilled artist, this “ubiquitous gaze” effect isn’t a difficult thing to achieve. In a nutshell, all you need is a little illusion of depth, so the person depicted appearing at least somewhat 3D despite being on a 2D canvas, and to direct the gaze of the eyes such that they would be looking at someone standing right in front of the picture.
So what exactly is going on here in our brains that then makes it seem like the eyes follow you even if you move away from being front and center? As demonstrated in 2004 by a team of researchers from Ohio State University, as you move to the side, the “near” and “far” points of the 2D image don’t really change. These near and far points are defined as visible points that, if the image was 3-dimensional, would appear nearest and furthest away from the viewer at a given angle.
Summarising their findings, co-author of the paper James Todd had the following to say:
The idea is simple – no matter what angle you look at a painting from, the painting itself doesn’t change. You’re looking at a flat surface…. The key is that the near points and far points of the picture remained the same no matter the angle the picture was viewed from. When observing real surfaces in the natural environment the visual information that specifies near and far points varies when we change viewing direction.
When we observe a picture on the wall, on the other hand, the visual information that defines near and far points is unaffected by viewing direction. Still, we interpret this perceptually as if it were a real object…
Thus, because the perspective, shadows, and light on the painting don’t change…
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