All other considerations aside, a painting is best hung upon a colorless background and black velvet for this purpose yields remarkable results. Gray velvet is better, when the appearance of the room is taken into consideration, as it must be. However, the influence of dark surroundings toward enhancing the illusion is well worth recognizing. In the case of a special picture or a special occasion, a painting may be exhibited in a booth—a huge shadow-box not unlike a show-window in which the light-sources are concealed. Such experiments yield many interesting data pertaining to the illusions which the painter strives to obtain.
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Fig. 82.—Illustrating the apparent distortion of a picture frame in which the grain of the wood is visible.
Incidentally on viewing some picture frames in which the grain of the wood was noticeable, the frames did not appear to be strictly rectangular. The illusions were so strong that only by measuring the frames could one be convinced that they were truly rectangular and possessed straight sides. Two of these are represented in [Figs. 82] and [83]. In the former, the horizontal sides appear bent upward in the middle and the two vertical sides appear bowed toward the right. In [Fig. 83], the frame appears considerably narrower at the left end than at the right. Both these frames were represented in the original drawings by true rectangles.
Many illusions are to be seen in furniture and in other woodwork in which the grain is conspicuous. This appears to the author to be an objection in general to this kind of finish. In [Fig. 84] there is reproduced a photograph of the end of a board which was plane or straight notwithstanding its warped, or bowed, appearance. The original photographs were placed so as to be related as shown in the figure. Various degrees of the illusion are evident. The reader will perhaps find it necessary to convince himself of the straightness of the horizontal edges by applying a straight edge. These are examples of the same illusion as shown in [Figs. 37 to 40].
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