example of anamorphic painting

[David Mullen ASC]

I saw this painting recently in London:

 

When viewed from an extreme side angle through a peephole, it looked like this (part of the frame was carved away to be able to look at such an extreme edge-on angle):

 

[Phil Rhodes]

I like Holbein's The Ambassadors for that trick. People occasionally used it to make "subversive" images less obvious (see wikipedia for more).

 

The really clever ones are drawn in polar coordinates and must be viewed using a mirrored cylinder:

 

http://theawesomer.com/anamorphic-drawings/138801/

[Keith Walters]

They do that a lot on televised sporting events, (at least in this country) where a low-mounted TV camera restores an advertiser's logo to the correct aspect ratio, but when viewed from another angle, its keystone shape is revealed.

 

They used to do it by simply setting up a slide projector where the camera was going to be located and

projecting a slide of the logo onto the field at night, and having a graphic artist draw the logo in by hand with spray paint, but I think there are fancier ways of doing it now.

 

It makes me wonder whether the artist in David's photo might have done a similar trick with a magic lantern.

 

 

[Dom Jaeger]

 

They do that a lot on televised sporting events, (at least in this country) where a low-mounted TV camera restores an advertiser's logo to the correct aspect ratio, but when viewed from another angle, its keystone shape is revealed.

 

They used to do it by simply setting up a slide projector where the camera was going to be located and

projecting a slide of the logo onto the field at night, and having a graphic artist draw the logo in by hand with spray paint, but I think there are fancier ways of doing it now.

 

It makes me wonder whether the artist in David's photo might have done a similar trick with a magic lantern.

 

 

 

 

The most common example you see is on road markings where words such as "left turn only" are stretched out vertically so a driver can read them normally from their low perspective.

 

Some early artists may have used drawing aids like a magic lantern or camera obscura, but more commonly they used a grid to map out a picture, which could then be transferred to a canvas or fresco wall and enlarged (or distorted) as needed.

 

The Quay brothers made this excellent little animated short film about the history of animorphosis in art, look out for the fabulously subversive Erhard Schön woodcut from the 16th century where an apparent landscape becomes something else entirely:

 

http://veehd.com/video/4724307_Timothy-and-Stephen-Quay-Anamorphosis-1991

[Gregg MacPherson]

Hey Dom,

 

VEEHD told me I had to download Vaudix plug in. I googled about that and several places said Vaudix contains a trojian/ rootkit malware that is hard to detect and hard to remove.

 

I think there is a lower res version of Anamorphosis on Youtube.

[Gregg MacPherson]

Looking for Anamorphosis in Youtube I found other work by the Quay Bros. A wonerful find, thanks Dom. I'm in the middle of The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes.

I wanted these links to show as text rather than pics but I don't know how yet.

 

 

Anamorphosis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5D80A04qmO0

 

 

The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2LA2i0sjZ8

Edited May 18, 2013 by Gregg MacPherson