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EnI · 12-06-2007, 10:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr. M

I need help from art buffs here (I'm looking at you Rob!). My dad's friend has this picture of a plane that is flying towards me. Fair enough. Now I walk around the picture and it's still facing towards me! I don't know if it's an illusion or what but it's a watercolour painting, there is no trickery involved. My dad's friend says that it works similarly with the Mona Lisa stare. She stares at you from everywhere you look!

How does this work?

Thanks in advance.

I found this ...

Quote:

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, Todd said.
“When observing real surfaces in the natural environment the visual information that specifies near and far points varies when we change viewing direction,” he said.
“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. That is why the eyes appear to follow you as you change your viewing direction.”
Todd said people may be surprised by this phenomenon because of the unique perceptual aspects of viewing a picture. We perceive the object depicted in a painting as a surface in 3-dimensional space, but we also perceive that the painting itself is a 2-dimensional surface that is hanging on the wall.
“When we look at a picture, you have these two perceptions simultaneously, but it is difficult to make sense of that conceptually. That’s why this issue has fascinated people for hundreds of years.”

Study Reveals Why Eyes In Some Paintings Seem To Follow Viewers