Of particular interest are 'Animal Physiognomy,' about facial resemblances betweenĪnimals and humans, and 'Pictorial Stones,' about the perception of pictures in rocks.īehrens, Roy R., Illustration as an Art (Englewood Cliffs NJ: Prentice Hall, 1986). Five illustrated art historical essays on various 'depraved perspectives.' Gombrich (in Art and Illusion) as 'the beholder's share,' and by psychologists, variously as 'closure' and 'projection.' - R.B.īaltrusaitis, Jurgis, Aberrations: An Essay on the Legend of Forms (Cambridge MA: MIT Because spurious images are ambiguous, their interpretation requires a complicity, more or less, on the part of the viewer, an act described by art historian E.H. ' One could cite hundreds, perhaps thousands, of other examples, some of which might be classified as 'natural simulacra' (the result, some would insist, of purposeful activity on the part of a deity), and the remainder as manmade 'embedded figures,' the consequence of deliberate or accidental human activity. You can also find in them battles and rapidly moving figures, strange faces and costumes, as well as an infinite number of things. you can think you see in them certain picturesque views of mountains, rivers, rocks, trees, plains, broad valleys, and hills of different shapes. In the visual arts, one of the earliest, most celebrated examples is a frequently quoted passage from the notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci: 'If you look at walls that are stained or made of different kinds Janson called 'chance images') include Rorschach inkblots, the Man in the Moon, faces in the clouds, and, arguably, the Shroud of Turin and Joe Camel. examples of 'spurious images' (which art historian H.W.

Spurious Images in Art and Advertising: An Annotated Bibliography Compiled by Roy R. Leonardo On-Line: Spurious Images Bibliography

Simulacra by John Michell