Visual Curiosities: Playing with Perspective - Anamorphosis

04/12/2024

Anamorphosis, which has historically been used as a tool for concealment or artistic play, reveals another aspect of visual perception.

We refer to anamorphosis when an image is distorted through projection or warped perspective. This distortion is reversible when the observer positions themselves at a specific viewpoint or uses a special optical device. There are two main types of anamorphosis: oblique and mirror-based.

Anamorphosis is possibly almost as old as art itself. Piero della Francesca described it in his treatise on perspective in 1474. Perhaps the most famous example is found in the painting The Ambassadors by Hans Holbein Jr. (1533). At the bottom of the painting, when viewed from a very low position to the left, a mysterious skull becomes visible.

Like Leonardo da Vinci, a master of cryptography, Holbein may have aimed to simultaneously reveal and conceal this image in a work already filled with symbols.

During the Baroque period, anamorphosis became popular in cabinets with markings or holes to guide the viewer, such as Jan de Breuil’s Cabinet of Pyramid Anamorphosis. They were often used to create illusionistic perspectives and trompe-l'œil effects.

Contemporary art has embraced anamorphosis enthusiastically, both in relatively traditional forms like murals and street art.

We live in a world where anamorphosis has become a routine technique in image production. Cinemascope achieved its panoramic effect through lenses that compressed the image horizontally during filming and expanded it during projection. Today, it is commonly used in graphic design for packaging and wrapping, as well as in traffic signage: letters and arrows painted on roads are distorted so they appear "normal" from the driver's low-angle perspective.

Anamorphosis reveals another hidden aspect of vision: how the perception of shapes depends on the correct perspective and on our ability (and limitations) to adapt to its changes.

Professor Rafael I. Barraquer, Medical Director of the Barraquer Ophthalmology Centre