Q: optical illusion?
andy.r...@grc.nasa.gov
(Nearly) everyone has seen a portrait painting where the
subject's eyes seem to always look at the viewer, even as
you walk around the room. Can anyone explain how you paint
this? It's a neat trick, and someone asked me how it
works... Thanks in advance
Andrew Resnick, Ph. D.
Optical Physicist
Dynacs Engineering Co.
2001 Aerospace Parkway
Brook Park, OH 44142
Ken Beyer
Your extrasensory perception allows you to be 'aware' of the eyes (and always the eyes, we tend to focus on that aspect of the face when we talk to someone) seemingly follow you around a room when they don't in fact do that at all.
The 'effect' is usually caused when a portrait or figurative painting is painted as if you (the viewer) were actually talking / looking at the person in the portrait. There isn't a technique to doing it. it's an 'illusion' created quite accidentally, by your perception as you walk around a room.
There are a lot of portrait painters who's work has this 'effect', the Dutch artist, Frans Hals (c.1580-1666) being on of them.
Ken Beyer
UK based artist painter
http://www.telinco.co.uk/beyer/splash.htm
Stephen Morgana
andy.r...@grc.nasa.gov wrote:
> I'm not sure if this is the right group, but in any case...
>
> (Nearly) everyone has seen a portrait painting where the
> subject's eyes seem to always look at the viewer, even as
> you walk around the room. Can anyone explain how you paint
> this? It's a neat trick, and someone asked me how it
> works... Thanks in advance
>
> Andrew Resnick, Ph. D.
> Optical Physicist
> Dynacs Engineering Co.
> 2001 Aerospace Parkway
> Brook Park, OH 44142
>
And its not just eyes. I've seen a painting where a figures boot
points at the viewer and another painting where the floorboards in a
room kept pointing at the viewer. Unfortunately I dont know how it is
done either :( I also wonder if it is a good effect to go for
anyways. The only thing I remember about the painting of the room was
what the floorboards were doing. If you want to make a painting who's
message is an optical illusion, go for it, but if you are trying to say
something with your painting, I would avoid it. On the otherhand if
you are doing a portrait, it might be a good way to bond the viewer
with the painting.
--
Stephen
http://homepages.go.com/~scm2000
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Benny Shaboy
On Wed, 04 Aug 1999 12:56:18 GMT, andy.r...@grc.nasa.gov wrote:
>the
>subject's eyes seem to always look at the viewer, even as
>you walk around the room. Can anyone explain how you paint
>this? It's a neat trick, and someone asked me how it
>works... Thanks in advance
>
>
>Andrew Resnick, Ph. D.
....
The explanation that I have always heard is that each eye in a
portrait like this has a "highlight"--a little spot of white at about
2 o'clock on the iris. Because of the stark contrast, the viewer
(unwittingly) focuses on these spots and it thus appears that the
subject is always looking at the viewer.
This area of study is the purview of the perceptual psychologist, as
I'm sure you know. I believe Kurt Koffka (who may have touched on this
exact issue) did some of the pioneering work in this area this in the
'20s '30s, along with Wertheimer, Kohler and others. Back in the late
40's Dr. Samuel Renshaw did a lot of work on the psychology of visual
perception not too far from you at Ohio State (Columbus), and I'm sure
there has been subsequent study. (I recall, vaguely, at least one
article in Scientific American several years ago. A search of their
cumulative index might come up with something.)
Benny Shaboy
studioNOTES
http://webgalleries.com/studionotes
Aster Iske
>(Nearly) everyone has seen a portrait painting where the
>subject's eyes seem to always look at the viewer, even as
>you walk around the room. Can anyone explain how you paint
>this? It's a neat trick, and someone asked me how it
>works... Thanks in advance
I know of no particular 'trick' to achieving this.
It's the painter's ability to capture the person's
likeness you are witnessing and has nothing to do
with a specific trick that I am aware of. Knowing
'how to' paint eyes and faces is the only trick.
As someone has suggested, where you place the highlight
has a significant impact on getting the eyes right,
but it's not the only factor in making a person's
gaze follow you. It's really no different than
capturing a person who is looking directly at the
camera versus someone who is looking slightly aside.
Marilyn
> >subject's eyes seem to always look at the viewer, even as
> >you walk around the room. Can anyone explain how you paint
> >this? It's a neat trick, and someone asked me how it
> >works... Thanks in advance
> >
> >
> ....
>
> The explanation that I have always heard is that each eye in a
> portrait like this has a "highlight"--a little spot of white at about
> 2 o'clock on the iris. Because of the stark contrast, the viewer
> (unwittingly) focuses on these spots and it thus appears that the
> subject is always looking at the viewer.
>
> This area of study is the purview of the perceptual psychologist, as
> I'm sure you know. I believe Kurt Koffka (who may have touched on this
> exact issue) did some of the pioneering work in this area this in the
> '20s '30s, along with Wertheimer, Kohler and others. Back in the late
> 40's Dr. Samuel Renshaw did a lot of work on the psychology of visual
> perception not too far from you at Ohio State (Columbus), and I'm sure
> there has been subsequent study. (I recall, vaguely, at least one
> article in Scientific American several years ago. A search of their
> cumulative index might come up with something.)
>
> Benny Shaboy
> studioNOTES
> http://webgalleries.com/studionotes
Hi Benny,
Isn't this called "the stare" in art history?
M.
mark webber
> In article <37a83863...@newsread.lerc.nasa.gov>, andy.r...@grc.nasa.gov
> says...
>
> >(Nearly) everyone has seen a portrait painting where the
> >subject's eyes seem to always look at the viewer, even as
> >you walk around the room. Can anyone explain how you paint
> >this? It's a neat trick, and someone asked me how it
> >works... Thanks in advance
>
> I know of no particular 'trick' to achieving this.
> It's the painter's ability to capture the person's
> likeness you are witnessing and has nothing to do
> with a specific trick that I am aware of. Knowing
> 'how to' paint eyes and faces is the only trick.
> As someone has suggested, where you place the highlight
> has a significant impact on getting the eyes right,
> but it's not the only factor in making a person's
> gaze follow you. It's really no different than
> capturing a person who is looking directly at the
> camera versus someone who is looking slightly aside.
>
Oh come on, folks. In all good-natured kindness, this is a bit off the
mark. If the eyes are depicted as looking at "you" the artist, they will
"follow" you around the room and into the next one. It has nothing to do
with the highlights - and highlights can be placed anywhere on an eye,
because the light source (the source of the highlight) can come from any
direction.
Just draw or paint the eyes looking into your eyes as you look at them.
Then they will "follow" you.
best,
Mark
Aster Iske
webb...@TIGER.UOFS.EDU says...
>Just draw or paint the eyes looking into your eyes as you look at them.
>Then they will "follow" you.
I think that's what I said but for those who get
really into eyeball art, the highlight is all-important
in depicting the liquid character of the eyes. And
I'm not referring here to ONLY the higlight on the iris.
But as you say, that has really nothing to do with
'eyes that follow you around.'
An aside. I've seen highlights on eyeballs done in
such detail that you could actually see the light
source in the reflection -- which is what the highlight
actually is -- a reflection. Vermeer comes instantly
to mind when speaking of reflected images in small detail.
Ken Beyer
The effect is in fact due to you (the viewer) being overtly aware of the eyes of the portrait as you walk around a room.
We have a close connection to the human figure, especially the face, because it is our primary source of telling us whether things are 'OK' with the person we are talking to. The eyes tend to be our primary focus on the face, this applies to paintings and portraits just as much as to humans.
It's this awareness of the eyes that's causing the problem, because we 'can't take our eyes off it..' even when we have our back turned to the picture!. We are aware of the painting staring at us in exactly the same way as we would be if in a room full of people. We (the viewer) are consciously (and subconsciously!) following it around a room and not the other way around; (the phrase 'you can see it out of the corner of you eye' is a case in point your watching it regardless of what you, as a viewer, may think is happening!!).
The viewer is the only thing with moving parts capableof follow anything around a room.
This phenomena is distinct from the illusions of perspective which some one has already suggested (although it does fall into the same general category of illusion)
Ken Beyer
UK based Artist Painter
http://www.telinco.co.uk/beyer/splash.htm
Virgin
lines here as you seem to infer this effect has to do with a very specific
detail. It doesn't). The paintings of the Dutch artist Frans Hals for
instance
are very loose and yet this 'following...' effect applies to his paintings.
The effect is in fact due to you (the viewer) being overtly aware of the
eyes of the portrait as you walk around a room.
We have a close connection to the human figure, especially the face,
because it is our primary source of telling us whether things are 'OK' with
the person we are talking to. The eyes tend to be our primary focus on the
face, this applies to paintings and portraits just as much as to humans.
It's this awareness of the eyes that's causing the problem, because we
'can't take our eyes off it..' even when we have our back turned to the
picture!. We are aware of the painting staring at us in exactly the same
way as we would be if in a room full of people. We (the viewer) are
consciously (and subconsciously!) following it around a room and not the
other way around; (the phrase 'you can see it out of the corner of you eye'
is a case in point your watching it regardless of what you, as a viewer,
may think is happening!!).
The viewer is the only thing with moving parts capableoffollow anything
around a room.
This phenomena is distinct from the illusions of perspective which some
one has already suggested (although it does fall into the same general
category of illusion)
Ken Beyer
UK based Artist Painter
http://www.telinco.co.uk/beyer/splash.htm
Aster Iske <do...@emailme.com> wrote in message
news:37a9c...@oracle.zianet.com...
Erik A. Mattila
living in Paris, who would make the eyes come alive with an expertly placed
white dot!
But honestly, I thought the 'optical illusion' was because the eyes were cut
out, and some one was behind the wall checking things out- peering through
the holes.
Erik Mattila
Bob C
>
> Oh come on, folks. In all good-natured kindness, this is a bit off the
> mark. If the eyes are depicted as looking at "you" the artist, they will
> "follow" you around the room and into the next one. It has nothing to do
> with the highlights - and highlights can be placed anywhere on an eye,
> because the light source (the source of the highlight) can come from any
> direction.
>
> Then they will "follow" you.
>
I've been looking at a few portraits and I don't think it is quite that
simple. For example, I looked at several portraits drawn head on in well
lit situations, and they had no following effect at all. As you move to
one side or another, you still perceive the eyes as looking straight
ahead from the painting. Even though the depicted orientation of the
image doesn't change, there is still a very strong effect of appearing
to see the image from a different viewpoint as you move around it.
I then used the Mona Lisa as a classic example of a painting which eyes
which follow you. The eyes really do appear to be moving. From directly
in front, the face is turned to your left with the eyes looking straight
at you; as you move to the left, the face eventually appears to be
looking straight at you with the eyes also looking straight at you! Thus
the eyes have appeared to move in relation to the face, which cannot be
attributed simply to the fact that they were painted as looking at you.
What may be very significant in the Mona Lisa is that the white on the
shortened side of her left eye is in the shadow and very indistinct. As
we move to our right, that portion of the white of the eye seems to
disappear entirely, as if the eye were turned as far in that direction
as possible and thus following us. As we move to the left, her right eye
becomes more important. When viewed in foreshortened state, the brighter
white surrounding the short side of that eye can seem to be as large as
the portion on the other side, thus allowing us to see the eye as
looking straight ahead in relation to the face which now appears to be
pointed straight at us. In this way the eyes not only follows us, they
actually seem to move in relation to the face.
I looked at two portraits which had a similar head tilt and stare, but
either allowed the shortened whites in both eyes to be prominent
(Rembrandt) or made them indistinct in both eyes (Velazaquez). In both
cases the eyes failed to follow me around the room in both directions
although they generally worked well for one direction; the direction
which my theory correctly predicted.
This was not a rigorous test and my analysis may be completely wrong,
but it seems almost certain that the illusion is much stronger if you
focus only on the eye on the side of the head closest to you. This seems
to be our natural focus point; if you look too hard and focus on both
eyes equally, the illusion becomes much harder to maintain.
- Bob C.
mark webber
>
> I've been looking at a few portraits and I don't think it is quite that
> simple. For example, I looked at several portraits drawn head on in well
> lit situations, and they had no following effect at all. As you move to
> one side or another, you still perceive the eyes as looking straight
> ahead from the painting. Even though the depicted orientation of the
> image doesn't change, there is still a very strong effect of appearing
> to see the image from a different viewpoint as you move around it.
Hi Bob,
I have to say that if this is your experience then I may well be wrong,
but depicting the eyes in eye-contact with the viewer has always worked to
my recollection.
Highlight placement, however, does not affect the illusion, I'm pretty
sure.
best,
Mark
Malcolm Banthorpe
to me that a convenient way of testing the various theories put forward
is, in three simple steps,
1) Draw a pair of forward looking eyes
2) Place drawing on wall
3) Walk around room observing, from time to time, which way the
eyes appear to be pointing
For those who can't be bothered with the drawing, you can see my humble
effort at
http://www.grafic.demon.co.uk/eyes
There are three versions 1) has highlights in a conventional position
2) has no highlights
3) has highlights in a less likely position
All three show the "follow" effect in my view.
The first version looks best as the highlights add a bit of "life" to
the eyes.
The third version looks unnatural because the highlights suggest that
the light source is below eye level and conflicts with the lighting
otherwise suggested by the shading.
I also suspect that if the eyes are drawn only "more or less" looking
forward, they will appear to look at approximately at the observer if
viewed head on but the effect will diminish or be lost if they are viewd
at an angle.
Malcolm Banthorpe
Ken Beyer
If you are aware of the eyes following you then it means you are looking at it (the painting) regardless as to whether its from the side, from the front, from the back of what ever!. Granted are paintings that have this effect but it isn't due to any magic or special technique; as Bob pointed out; his 'with and without' experiment makes this quite obvious.
There is a bit of psychology involved in this, in that if you know about
a painting and it's 'following...' effect, you will expect it to happen,
the opposite is also true; if you don't it won't! This is a matter of projecting
what you may or may not want onto an inanimate object!.
Ken Beyer
UK based Artist Painter
http://www.telinco.co.uk/beyer/splash.htm
Peter H.M. Brooks
malc...@grafic.demon.co.uk "Malcolm Banthorpe" writes:
> I hope this isn't too much a case of stating the obvious, but it seems
> to me that a convenient way of testing the various theories put forward
> is, in three simple steps,
>
> 1) Draw a pair of forward looking eyes
> 2) Place drawing on wall
> 3) Walk around room observing, from time to time, which way the
> eyes appear to be pointing
>
I am delighted to see such a frankly pragmatic suggestion here!
--
Peter H.M. Brooks
Bob C
>
> 1) Draw a pair of forward looking eyes
> 2) Place drawing on wall
> 3) Walk around room observing, from time to time, which way the
> eyes appear to be pointing
>
> effort at
> http://www.grafic.demon.co.uk/eyes
>
> There are three versions 1) has highlights in a conventional position
> 2) has no highlights
> 3) has highlights in a less likely position
>
> All three show the "follow" effect in my view.
>
They certainly do. But as I have stated previously in this thread, I've
looked at many portraits with the eyes looking straight out at the
viewer in which the eyes do not follow me around the room. Maybe I'm
just not particularly susceptible to this phenomena. But the images in
which the eyes do follow me all have something in common: sufficient
ambiguity in the depiction of the eyes and their relation to the face to
allow the illusion to take place.
In the images posted by Malcolm, there is a great deal of ambiguity. The
drawings themselves are very fuzzy and indistinct, and then there is the
total lack of any head or other reference point in which to place the
eyes. It is therefore quite easy for me to perceive the entire head
turning to follow me wherever I move in the room.
In the case of the Mona Lisa, whose eyes also follow, there is much less
ambiguity. But as I described in a previous post, I think that the
ambiguities which were included were those which specifically worked
towards strengthening the illusion. This may have been just an
accidental side-effect of creating the convincing straight-ahead stare,
but I'm still not convinced that any or even most eyes drawn looking
directly at the viewer will follow me around the room just because of
that characteristic alone.
If true, then the more realistically rendered the eyes and face, the
less ambiguities they will contain, and therefore the more clever those
ambiguities have to be to make the illusion work. There may very well be
tricks or short cuts for accomplishing this, but in this awful heat I
just don't have the energy to conduct any tests of my own!
- Bob C.
Peter H.M. Brooks
>
> They certainly do. But as I have stated previously in this thread, I've
> looked at many portraits with the eyes looking straight out at the
> viewer in which the eyes do not follow me around the room. Maybe I'm
> just not particularly susceptible to this phenomena. But the images in
>
phenomenon.
>
> If true, then the more realistically rendered the eyes and face, the
> less ambiguities they will contain, and therefore the more clever those
> ambiguities have to be to make the illusion work. There may very well be
> tricks or short cuts for accomplishing this, but in this awful heat I
> just don't have the energy to conduct any tests of my own!
>
Accept then that it is as it is.
--
Peter H.M. Brooks
If anyone can show me, and prove to me, that I am wrong in thought of deed,
I will gladly change. I seek the truth, which never hurt anybody. It is only
persistence in self-delusion and ignorance which does harm - Marcus Aurelius.
Erik A. Mattila
renderings of rings on the ad pages of comic books, I had a lot of trouble
understanding why I couldn't cut out the '3D' picture of the large rings, shown
actual size, and slip it on my finger. I would spend hours comtemplating this,
and every once in a while a feeling of enlightenment would pass across me, as I
'understood' why it couldn't be done.
I find myself leaning toward the ideological thesis, i.e. that we 'believe' the
eye to be following us. Undoubtedly there are opitical mechanics working here,
but the ideological aspect is present, as it always is. Anyone remember a
Scientific American article, several years ago, about mentally constructed
shapes. One of the images the article showcased was a simple cross, the four
segments slightly separated in the center (you could do it with four
matchsticks). The negative shape at the middle is a circle, or at least we
'see' a circle there. The article more or less proves that we just don't 'see',
per se, but rather that seeing is an interpretive act. The classic example is
found in persons who have been given sight by modern surgery, and must spend
several months learning to organize the visual filed into intelligible vision.
The intital, raw, sensory experience for the newly sighted is chaotic.
Looking at your graphic, Malcolm, the eyes do follow - to a degree. But I'm
seeing them in relationship to the part of the face you are showing, so you
could say within this range, which is about 50 degrees off center in either
diriection, the whole 'part' of the face faces me (this is great language for
puns, but I'll constrain myself.) If I veiw it at a steeper angle, the whole
thing ceases to function this way.
Erik Mattila
Malcolm Banthorpe wrote:
> I hope this isn't too much a case of stating the obvious, but it seems
> to me that a convenient way of testing the various theories put forward
> is, in three simple steps,
>
> 1) Draw a pair of forward looking eyes
> 2) Place drawing on wall
> 3) Walk around room observing, from time to time, which way the
> eyes appear to be pointing
>
> For those who can't be bothered with the drawing, you can see my humble
> effort at
> http://www.grafic.demon.co.uk/eyes
>
> There are three versions 1) has highlights in a conventional position
> 2) has no highlights
> 3) has highlights in a less likely position
>
> All three show the "follow" effect in my view.
>
Kay
Erik A. Mattila wrote in message <37AB6DCA...@tomatoweb.com>...
:This thread reminds me a lot of a childhood experience. When I saw these
For myself, before I thought about this in art, I saw it in the movies. Who
hasn't seen the old mystery/horror movie as a child in which the
hero/heroine/victim suspiciously looks through the deserted mansion after
thinking they heard a noise and we, the audience, see a painting on the wall
with the eyes moving! Sheesh! That stuff used to scare me to death and I
was exposed to that sooner than to fine art. So have many of us been
influenced by the movie version of that phenomenon?
Kay
Malcolm Banthorpe
<URL:mailto:emat...@tomatoweb.com> wrote:
>
> I find myself leaning toward the ideological thesis, i.e. that we 'believe'
> the eye to be following us. Undoubtedly there are opitical mechanics
> working here, but the ideological aspect is present, as it always is.
>
That certainly seems to be the case.
Here's what Professor E H Gombrich has to say on the subject, in his
book "Art and Illusion":
"In a sense, I believe, all portraits do this when they do not
clearly look elsewhere. ...... In our perceptions we are
completely self-centred, and for good reason: we constantly
scan the world for things which may concern us directly; we
will assume that an eye looks at us, or a gun points at us,
unless we have good evidence to the contrary. If the picture does
not supply the contrary evidence, and our projective tests fail
to find it, we will succumb to the illusion."
Malcolm Banthorpe
AAR
<scarl...@theriver.com> writes
>For myself, before I thought about this in art, I saw it in the movies. Who
>hasn't seen the old mystery/horror movie as a child in which the
>hero/heroine/victim suspiciously looks through the deserted mansion after
>thinking they heard a noise and we, the audience, see a painting on the wall
>with the eyes moving! Sheesh! That stuff used to scare me to death and I
>was exposed to that sooner than to fine art. So have many of us been
>influenced by the movie version of that phenomenon?
>Kay
>
Hi, Kay. Isn't it weird - the discussion instantly went to *how* an
artist does this, and a stream of technical investigations took off
thereafter. The crux of the matter is that the artist learns how to
evoke a response in the audience, not through one *set technique* but
through a combination of tools brought together on one stage. That is
the power of the artist. The movie sets the scene - ambiguity and
mystery through music, silence, shadows and darkness. The painting does
the same - through colour, light, and form the artist evokes the same
ambiguity and mystery that makes the viewer feel the same uneasiness you
describe from the movie. That is the success of the Mona Lisa.
--
Alison
Aster Iske
>
>This thread reminds me a lot of a childhood experience. When I saw these
>renderings of rings on the ad pages of comic books
Of course we could drag the master of illusion into
this discussion. I'm referring to the artist M.C. Escher...
Marilyn Welch
Yes, back to "The Stare."
Modern painters like Mary Cassatte avoided "the stare" and
painted people who were involved in something other than
looking out into space (or seemingly at the viewer).
Marilyn
Dan Fox
'The Reverend Dr. Billy Sol Hargis.' Dr. Hargis was continually selling
his religious products, one of which was a portrait of Jesus. Not only
did the eyes follow you around the room, but, if you sinned, he shed a
tear.
Now THAT's painting!
(Does anybody else remember Imus in the mid-seventies on WNBC in New York?)
--
Dan
'The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.' - Blake
http://www.danfoxart.com