Visual Illusions: Their Causes, Characteristics and ApplicationsLuckiesh, Matthew
Science
Visual Illusions: Their Causes, Characteristics and Applications
Luckiesh, Matthew
Optical illusions
This illustrates the pitiable weakness of pigments alone as
representative media. Will not light _transmitted_ through media some day
be utilized to overcome this inherent handicap of reflecting media? To
what extent is the success of stained glass windows due to a lessening of
this handicap? The range of brightness in this case may be represented by
a black (non-transmitting) portion to the brightness of the background
(artificial or sky) as seen through an area of clear glass. Transparencies
have an inherent advantage over ordinary paintings in this respect and
many effective results may be obtained with them even in photography.
It is interesting to study the effect of greatly increasing the range of
values or brightnesses in paintings by utilizing non-uniform distributions
of light. Let us take a given landscape painting. If a light-source be so
placed that it is close to the brighter areas (perhaps clouds and sky near
the sun) it will illuminate this brighter portion several times more
intensely than the more distant darker portions of the picture (foreground
of trees, underbrush, deep shadows, etc.). The addition to the
effectiveness of the illusion is quite perceptible. This effect of
non-uniform lighting may be carried to the extreme for a painting by
making a positive lantern-slide (rather contrasty) of the painting and
projecting this slide upon the painting in accurate superposition. Now if
the painting is illuminated solely by the "lantern-slide" the range of
contrast or brightness will be enormously increased. The lightest portions
of the picture will now be illuminated by light passing through the almost
totally transparent portions of the slide and the darkest portions by
light greatly reduced by passing through the nearly opaque portions of the
slide. The original range of contrast in the painting, perhaps twenty to
one, is now increased perhaps to more than a thousand to one. This
demonstration will be surprising to anyone and will emphasize a very
important point to the painter.
The painter has at his disposal all the scientific facts of light, color,
and vision. Many of these have been presented elsewhere,[9] and those
pertaining to illusions have been discussed in preceding chapters. These
need not be repeated here excepting a few for the purpose of reminding the
reader of the wealth of material available to the painter and decorator.
Many tricks may be interjected into the foreground for their effect upon
the background and vice versa. For example, a branch of a tree drooping in
the foreground apparently close to the observer, if done well, will give a
remarkable depth to a painting. Modeling of form may be effected to some
extent by a judicious use of the "retiring" and "advancing" colors. This
is one way to obtain the illusion of depth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account