ArtsArtPaintings
ANSWERS: 2
  • Because the artist painted his subject in a "head-on" perspective that makes it look like the painting is staring at you. If you took a picture of yourself in a mirror where wou were looking at the camera's lens, it'd look the same.
  • "All it takes for the effect to work is to have the person in the painting, or photograph, look straight ahead, said James Todd, co-author of the study and a professor of psychology at Ohio State University. Our visual perception takes care of the rest. “The core 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 pattern of light and dark remains the same,” Todd said. “We found that our visual perception of a picture also remains largely unchanged as we look at it from different vantage points. If a person in a painting is looking straight out, it will always appear that way, regardless of the angle at which it is viewed.”" "“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.”" Source and further information: http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/eyefolow.htm

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