While Renaissance artists focused the viewer’s gaze straight ahead, Baroque artists used the technique of anamorphosis to make distorted figures visible from a specific angle or through a mirror. This allowed the viewer to actively engage with the work and rediscover the meaning of art.
Renaissance artists typically represented objects by placing the viewer’s eye at the front of the painting. They expected the viewer to have a fixed point of view when viewing the work, so if the viewer was looking at the painting from a very oblique angle, things would appear distorted. This made the proper positioning of the viewer an important challenge, and Francesca, a theorist of the time, even argued that the viewer’s field of vision should be within a 90-degree angle of the front of the painting. This shows that Renaissance art emphasized frontality and balance.
However, this approach began to change over time. By the Baroque period, artists didn’t see these distortions as a problem to be solved, but rather as a creative way of expression. This is when a separate painting technique called anamorphosis developed. Anamorphosis, or distortion, is the extreme distortion of an object’s shape, making it difficult to recognize what is being depicted from the front. There are two types of distortion: square distortion and reflective distortion. If the viewer sees the correct shape of the dwarf when looking at the screen from a certain point, it is called a square dwarf because the point is always in a square with respect to the screen. Also, if a cylindrical mirror is placed around the dwarf and the dwarf appears to be correctly shaped through the mirror’s reflection, it is called a reflective dwarf.
These technological advancements have gone beyond simply fixing the viewer’s gaze, and instead emphasize the interaction between the viewer and the artwork. A viewer who is used to looking at a painting from the front is likely to be confused when they first see a dwarf, perceiving it as a kind of “blob” rather than an object. However, by repositioning oneself or placing a mirror in front of it, the blob is transformed into a meaningful shape, and only when the viewer’s position or the viewer’s actions fulfill certain conditions does the original image that the artist intended to express appear. The image that the artist hides in the form of a dwarf cannot be revealed without the participation of the viewer, so the viewer actively participates in the viewing of the painting without realizing it in order to grasp the artist’s hidden thoughts.
This fascination with anamorphosis has intrigued scholars and artists alike. Niceron, for example, noted that while the dwarfs are considered chaos by ordinary viewers, the viewer who finds the right perspective can recognize hidden truths. This suggests that the dwarf is not simply a distorted picture, but a tool that completes the meaning of the work through the viewer’s active participation in discovering the truth.
Due to its unique appearance, anamorphosis has been considered only as the entertainment of certain people in Western art history. It is also argued that, especially in the case of the square dwarf, there is not much difference between it and the Renaissance paintings described above in terms of appreciation. However, despite these criticisms, the significance of the dwarf statue is that the viewer, who has been passively looking at the painting from a fixed position in front of the viewer, becomes an active participant in the process of looking at the statue correctly and finds the artist’s intention and theme.
Anamorphosis also continues to have an appeal in contemporary art. As anamorphosis techniques are utilized in new mediums such as digital art, more and more artworks require viewer participation and interaction. This leads to a new relationship with the artwork that breaks away from the traditional way of viewing it. Artists are using this technique to create a deeper connection with the viewer beyond simply providing visual pleasure.
In conclusion, anamorphosis is more than just a technique. It allows the viewer to not just look at a painting, but to actively participate and contribute to the completion of the work in the process of discovering hidden truths. In this sense, anamorphosis plays an important role in rethinking the nature of art and the way we appreciate it.
