November 25, 2020 • 11 mins
Ever noticed how eyes in a painting sometimes follow you around the room? It’s weird! But it’s also fully explainable and Josh and Chuck do just that here.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey there, Hi, there, ho there, and welcome to the
short stuff. I'm Josh, there's chalk, and Jerry's here, which
took up an extra couple of seconds mentioning Jerry. So
let's get to it because we just wasted some time. Yeah. So,
if you remember about a year ago, dear listener, we
did a podcast, a little shorty on the Mona Lisa
and we talked kind of briefly about the fact that
(00:25):
Mona Lisa's eyes will follow you if you move about
the room like a horror movie painting, and that's the thing,
and we said, I think Josh even said, hey, you know,
I want to do a show on that. I like
a regular shorty on that. That was a great Josh impression. Hello, Love,
let's do one on that, right, Jimminy crickets Um, So
(00:49):
we did. This is what we're doing right now, Chuck.
That's right. The the the reason why which will come
later in the podcast, but the phenomenon of that we've
all seen on school be doing in horror movies of
moving around a room and the appearance that the eyeballs
of the painting are following you. Right, So there's actual
like this is actually a thing as anybody who's ever
(01:10):
seen it in real life knows um, but you may
not have ever understood why. And it turns out that
it's one of the easiest things in the world to understand,
one of the hardest things in the world to explain.
For some reason, I had a hard time to it
makes no sense whatsoever, because once you understand it, you're like, okay, yeah,
of course that makes total sense. But like I even
(01:31):
had to go back and add some to this article
that bro this is a Josh Clark jam from the
House Stuff Works staff writer days, and I had to
go back and and add something from like I think
some art site and another site about there was like
a forum among painters. There's this one painter's post saying
like I can't make the eyes look at the viewer.
(01:54):
Helped me and there, you know, some people kind of
swooped in and explained to this one pain or how
to do it. But it's actually very, very hard. But
the whole thing is based on um perspective, and you
would not have been able to make a painting with
eyes staring at the viewer um before the four century,
(02:14):
I believe, and thanks to an Italian architect named Philip.
I'm sorry, Chuck, you want to take this one. It's
about to say. I mean, I know I'm not sitting
in the room with you. But Filippo brunellesco very nice.
And he was an architect in Italy, like I said,
and he was um in charge of the Baptiste. Sorry, Chuck,
(02:35):
Baptista and Sanelin very nice. So um. He basically accidentally
figured out perspective. Linear perspective in particular, which is in
a painting where if you're looking at, say like a
painting of railroad tracks, Um, they vanish in the distance,
but if you'll notice they come together. The reason that
they seem very far off, and that the tracks closer
(02:58):
to to the wider part closer to you in the
tracks closer together further from you is because it's union
using linear perspective, which is just all lines in a
painting can trace their origin back to a common single point.
That's the that's the source of linear perspective. Yeah, and
it's one of the coolest things in art, the notion
(03:20):
that you can draw something on a flat canvas and
just have those points kind of come closer to each
other at the top, and it gives the impression of distance.
It's really really cool. It is very cool. So that's
one thing that that it's like you said, it gives
the impression of distance. And before linear perspective came along,
um artists had height and width and the only way
(03:42):
to make something seem further away is to draw it
smaller than the other thing. You want to seem closer together,
and the whole, the whole jam just seemed very flat.
Like if you think of hieroglyphics Egyptian um paintings on
walls of tombs, that's a good example of pre perspective
of art, right, very flat and two dimensional. Yeah, you
(04:05):
can also do some other things to create the illusion
of depth. Obviously, light and shadow. If you use light,
it will demonstrate something um surfaces closeness to the light
source and it's going to protrude out and then then
reflect more light. You're going to use that shadow and
the darker areas uh to denote something that's more closed off,
maybe something further away. You combine those two things and
(04:28):
you're gonna have another illusion. That illusion of depth basically
sort of like a third dimension that's really not there exactly,
but for all intents and purposes. You have just figured
out how to add that third dimension, and it's like
you just said, that's really important. It's not actually there
using linear perspective, using the interplay of light and shadows
(04:49):
to to suggest depth. It's not their height and with
they're actually there. Those two dimensions are actually present in
the painting. But that third dimension of of depth also
known his length, that is nothing but an optical illusion.
But that optical illusion gives rise to another optical illusion,
the eyes and a painting following you around the room.
(05:11):
That's right, So we're gonna take a break and talk
how that actually works right after this. All right, So
(05:39):
before we get to how that actually works, we should
point out that what you mentioned earlier from that painter's
blog or threat or whatever, uh it is, it is
a tough thing to do as an artist to paint
eyes um on a human being that look like they're
looking at the person looking at the painting. It's a
hard thing to do. Yeah, like you are based to
(06:00):
clear a master of painting if you can do it
without really having to think about it. But it has
everything for years. Are you do you paint? Okay? I
can see that being like just something I didn't know that,
you just kind of did on the side. Um. So
if you ever want to try, apparently chuck from what
I could tell from this painter forum, we'll call it
(06:20):
paint chan um. They if you have the face looking
dead on like nine degrees from the canvas, um, it's
much easier to paint the eyes looking out that way.
It gets really hard when the head is tilted or
um uh yeah, tilted in one way or another away
(06:42):
from that nine degree axis. That's when it gets hard.
Now has everything to do with how much of the
white is shown, um, how much of the iris has
shown where it sits in the eye. That it's really
tough to capture unless the painting is looking or that
the subject is looking straight out of the painting. Yeah.
So another thing we should understand before we move on
(07:04):
to how this little trick works with the eyes following
you is if you go, if you move yourself around
a statue, um, a sculpture, or if you move yourself
around a live human being and just tell them to
keep their eyes fixed forward and you move around them
and you keep your eyeballs on theirs, that that trick
is not gonna work. Their eyeballs are not going to
be following you around the room, nor would it appear
(07:27):
so from a sculpture, because you are changing your perspective.
Their perspective is saying the same, and you're actually you know,
when you round the corner, you go from seeing iris
to the whites of someone's eyes and then the back
of their head and then eventually back around again. And
not only that, you know you're seeing more iris or
less iris, or more right or less white. And this
(07:48):
is giving your brain visual cues about this third dimension, um,
but also the interplay of light and shadow on their face,
on their eyes wherever, also giving your brain que is
two and it's changing. Yes, this the statue your friend
who's staring straightforward going like why am I doing this again? Um?
Those things exist in the actual three third, three dimensions. Um.
(08:13):
The painting itself again, that third dimension is nothing but
tricks of of technique. They don't actually exist in the
three dimensions. So when you paint eyes looking a certain way,
they're going to look that certain way no matter what
they're fixed, they're set. Your brain is not going to
get any more information moving around the room that you're
(08:37):
It's not going You're not going to see more white
or less white of the eyes. The irises aren't going
to um change position. They are fixed no matter where
you stand in relation to that painting. And as a result,
that's why the eyes following around, because if they're painted
gazing out of the painting to begin with, they're going
to seem that way no matter where you stand, they'll
(08:59):
the eyes will follow you around the room from the painting.
That's right. If a person on a painting is painted
to where they're looking not looking at you, they're looking
away from you, it's not going to allow that allusion
to take place. Um and to cap it off, it's
even hard to have that poem have that person meet
(09:20):
your gaze. Like let's say someone's painted, uh and they're
looking sort of off to the side. You can't just
walk off to the side to kind of where they
seem to be looking and lock eyes with them. There
is just this weird illusion of this sort of forever
into the distance gaze that happens. Yeah, which really like
re re researching this and I think admittedly fully understanding
(09:43):
it for the first time has really given me a
lot of um of more respect for the craft of
painting portraits than I had to for yeah, because I've
never been into portraiture that much, so for me to yeah,
I like a good rembrand. Yeah so, But but I
mean the idea that it's it's really hard to paint
(10:04):
the eyes a certain way. And then the fact that
when you are painting eyes one way or the other,
you're you're locking them in through tricks of perspective, using
shadow and light and all that. That's I mean, hats
off to all of you painters out there. Yeah. One
thing I truly did not understand was this experiment in
two thousand four from a group of researchers to try
and prove this using a mannequin and math. I read
(10:28):
this ten times and I have no idea what they mean.
So they didn't use an actual mannequin. They used an
image of a mannequin, so it's in two dimensions, but
they used they used, um, you know, perspective to to
make it seem like a three dimensional mannequin's Torso well,
that makes more sense. But then they plotted out the
different dots, so the dots that should seem further away
(10:48):
because the mannequin itself, that part of the mannequin was
further away. Um seemed further away no matter where you
stood in when you were viewing this image of the mannequin.
And they may just to basically capture this digitally to
prove once and for all, this isn't The eyes following
you in a painting aren't a trick like it actually
(11:08):
is the way that that you're perceiving it, they do
seem to be following you around the room. It's not
like you're going nuts amazing, it really is. So now
everybody knows the eyes in a painting follow you around,
because if they're painted looking that way, you're not going
to get any other visual cues suggesting that they're looking
any other direction than that way. I think we've explained
(11:30):
to Chuck thinks, And since Chuck breathlessly said, I think so,
that means short stuff is apt. Stuff you should know
is production of iHeart Radios. How stuff works. For more
podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hey there, Hi, there, ho there, and welcome to the
short stuff. I'm Josh, there's chalk, and Jerry's here, which
took up an extra couple of seconds mentioning Jerry. So
let's get to it because we just wasted some time. Yeah. So,
if you remember about a year ago, dear listener, we
did a podcast, a little shorty on the Mona Lisa
and we talked kind of briefly about the fact that
(00:25):
Mona Lisa's eyes will follow you if you move about
the room like a horror movie painting, and that's the thing,
and we said, I think Josh even said, hey, you know,
I want to do a show on that. I like
a regular shorty on that. That was a great Josh impression. Hello, Love,
let's do one on that, right, Jimminy crickets Um, So
(00:49):
we did. This is what we're doing right now, Chuck.
That's right. The the the reason why which will come
later in the podcast, but the phenomenon of that we've
all seen on school be doing in horror movies of
moving around a room and the appearance that the eyeballs
of the painting are following you. Right, So there's actual
like this is actually a thing as anybody who's ever
(01:10):
seen it in real life knows um, but you may
not have ever understood why. And it turns out that
it's one of the easiest things in the world to understand,
one of the hardest things in the world to explain.
For some reason, I had a hard time to it
makes no sense whatsoever, because once you understand it, you're like, okay, yeah,
of course that makes total sense. But like I even
(01:31):
had to go back and add some to this article
that bro this is a Josh Clark jam from the
House Stuff Works staff writer days, and I had to
go back and and add something from like I think
some art site and another site about there was like
a forum among painters. There's this one painter's post saying
like I can't make the eyes look at the viewer.
(01:54):
Helped me and there, you know, some people kind of
swooped in and explained to this one pain or how
to do it. But it's actually very, very hard. But
the whole thing is based on um perspective, and you
would not have been able to make a painting with
eyes staring at the viewer um before the four century,
(02:14):
I believe, and thanks to an Italian architect named Philip.
I'm sorry, Chuck, you want to take this one. It's
about to say. I mean, I know I'm not sitting
in the room with you. But Filippo brunellesco very nice.
And he was an architect in Italy, like I said,
and he was um in charge of the Baptiste. Sorry, Chuck,
(02:35):
Baptista and Sanelin very nice. So um. He basically accidentally
figured out perspective. Linear perspective in particular, which is in
a painting where if you're looking at, say like a
painting of railroad tracks, Um, they vanish in the distance,
but if you'll notice they come together. The reason that
they seem very far off, and that the tracks closer
(02:58):
to to the wider part closer to you in the
tracks closer together further from you is because it's union
using linear perspective, which is just all lines in a
painting can trace their origin back to a common single point.
That's the that's the source of linear perspective. Yeah, and
it's one of the coolest things in art, the notion
(03:20):
that you can draw something on a flat canvas and
just have those points kind of come closer to each
other at the top, and it gives the impression of distance.
It's really really cool. It is very cool. So that's
one thing that that it's like you said, it gives
the impression of distance. And before linear perspective came along,
um artists had height and width and the only way
(03:42):
to make something seem further away is to draw it
smaller than the other thing. You want to seem closer together,
and the whole, the whole jam just seemed very flat.
Like if you think of hieroglyphics Egyptian um paintings on
walls of tombs, that's a good example of pre perspective
of art, right, very flat and two dimensional. Yeah, you
(04:05):
can also do some other things to create the illusion
of depth. Obviously, light and shadow. If you use light,
it will demonstrate something um surfaces closeness to the light
source and it's going to protrude out and then then
reflect more light. You're going to use that shadow and
the darker areas uh to denote something that's more closed off,
maybe something further away. You combine those two things and
(04:28):
you're gonna have another illusion. That illusion of depth basically
sort of like a third dimension that's really not there exactly,
but for all intents and purposes. You have just figured
out how to add that third dimension, and it's like
you just said, that's really important. It's not actually there
using linear perspective, using the interplay of light and shadows
(04:49):
to to suggest depth. It's not their height and with
they're actually there. Those two dimensions are actually present in
the painting. But that third dimension of of depth also
known his length, that is nothing but an optical illusion.
But that optical illusion gives rise to another optical illusion,
the eyes and a painting following you around the room.
(05:11):
That's right, So we're gonna take a break and talk
how that actually works right after this. All right, So
(05:39):
before we get to how that actually works, we should
point out that what you mentioned earlier from that painter's
blog or threat or whatever, uh it is, it is
a tough thing to do as an artist to paint
eyes um on a human being that look like they're
looking at the person looking at the painting. It's a
hard thing to do. Yeah, like you are based to
(06:00):
clear a master of painting if you can do it
without really having to think about it. But it has
everything for years. Are you do you paint? Okay? I
can see that being like just something I didn't know that,
you just kind of did on the side. Um. So
if you ever want to try, apparently chuck from what
I could tell from this painter forum, we'll call it
(06:20):
paint chan um. They if you have the face looking
dead on like nine degrees from the canvas, um, it's
much easier to paint the eyes looking out that way.
It gets really hard when the head is tilted or
um uh yeah, tilted in one way or another away
(06:42):
from that nine degree axis. That's when it gets hard.
Now has everything to do with how much of the
white is shown, um, how much of the iris has
shown where it sits in the eye. That it's really
tough to capture unless the painting is looking or that
the subject is looking straight out of the painting. Yeah.
So another thing we should understand before we move on
(07:04):
to how this little trick works with the eyes following
you is if you go, if you move yourself around
a statue, um, a sculpture, or if you move yourself
around a live human being and just tell them to
keep their eyes fixed forward and you move around them
and you keep your eyeballs on theirs, that that trick
is not gonna work. Their eyeballs are not going to
be following you around the room, nor would it appear
(07:27):
so from a sculpture, because you are changing your perspective.
Their perspective is saying the same, and you're actually you know,
when you round the corner, you go from seeing iris
to the whites of someone's eyes and then the back
of their head and then eventually back around again. And
not only that, you know you're seeing more iris or
less iris, or more right or less white. And this
(07:48):
is giving your brain visual cues about this third dimension, um,
but also the interplay of light and shadow on their face,
on their eyes wherever, also giving your brain que is
two and it's changing. Yes, this the statue your friend
who's staring straightforward going like why am I doing this again? Um?
Those things exist in the actual three third, three dimensions. Um.
(08:13):
The painting itself again, that third dimension is nothing but
tricks of of technique. They don't actually exist in the
three dimensions. So when you paint eyes looking a certain way,
they're going to look that certain way no matter what
they're fixed, they're set. Your brain is not going to
get any more information moving around the room that you're
(08:37):
It's not going You're not going to see more white
or less white of the eyes. The irises aren't going
to um change position. They are fixed no matter where
you stand in relation to that painting. And as a result,
that's why the eyes following around, because if they're painted
gazing out of the painting to begin with, they're going
to seem that way no matter where you stand, they'll
(08:59):
the eyes will follow you around the room from the painting.
That's right. If a person on a painting is painted
to where they're looking not looking at you, they're looking
away from you, it's not going to allow that allusion
to take place. Um and to cap it off, it's
even hard to have that poem have that person meet
(09:20):
your gaze. Like let's say someone's painted, uh and they're
looking sort of off to the side. You can't just
walk off to the side to kind of where they
seem to be looking and lock eyes with them. There
is just this weird illusion of this sort of forever
into the distance gaze that happens. Yeah, which really like
re re researching this and I think admittedly fully understanding
(09:43):
it for the first time has really given me a
lot of um of more respect for the craft of
painting portraits than I had to for yeah, because I've
never been into portraiture that much, so for me to yeah,
I like a good rembrand. Yeah so, But but I
mean the idea that it's it's really hard to paint
(10:04):
the eyes a certain way. And then the fact that
when you are painting eyes one way or the other,
you're you're locking them in through tricks of perspective, using
shadow and light and all that. That's I mean, hats
off to all of you painters out there. Yeah. One
thing I truly did not understand was this experiment in
two thousand four from a group of researchers to try
and prove this using a mannequin and math. I read
(10:28):
this ten times and I have no idea what they mean.
So they didn't use an actual mannequin. They used an
image of a mannequin, so it's in two dimensions, but
they used they used, um, you know, perspective to to
make it seem like a three dimensional mannequin's Torso well,
that makes more sense. But then they plotted out the
different dots, so the dots that should seem further away
(10:48):
because the mannequin itself, that part of the mannequin was
further away. Um seemed further away no matter where you
stood in when you were viewing this image of the mannequin.
And they may just to basically capture this digitally to
prove once and for all, this isn't The eyes following
you in a painting aren't a trick like it actually
(11:08):
is the way that that you're perceiving it, they do
seem to be following you around the room. It's not
like you're going nuts amazing, it really is. So now
everybody knows the eyes in a painting follow you around,
because if they're painted looking that way, you're not going
to get any other visual cues suggesting that they're looking
any other direction than that way. I think we've explained
(11:30):
to Chuck thinks, And since Chuck breathlessly said, I think so,
that means short stuff is apt. Stuff you should know
is production of iHeart Radios. How stuff works. For more
podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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