Sify: How the brain easily deciphers motion in Japanese line drawing
Using brain scans, scientists at Kyoto University, Japan, have found why line drawings to show "implicit motion", used by an 18th-century Japanese artist, work so well. Naoyuki Osaka admired line drawings by Hokusai Katsushika, and found that instead of using blur to suggest movement, as much modern art has done since the advent of photography, Katsushika created motion by drawing bodies in highly unstable positions. And the technique is thought to work because the brain "fills in" the effects of gravity pulling the bodies down...However, Oron Catts of SymbioticA...suggested that Japanese people may perceive the motion more vividly than people from other cultures because they are accustomed to this type of art. "In Japanese culture, people are trained to read those cartoon images as the representation of movement," he added...more...
