I definitely found some interesting public art in Montpellier. In addition to those trompe l’oeil buildings I talked about yesterday, there was another building that had metal animal head sculptures out front. At the time of day when I took the photos, the sun wasn’t in a position to cast any shadows on the heads, which made it obvious even from a distance that the “shadows” on the building weren’t real. When I got up close, I could also tell that the painted shadows deliberately were done so as to be different from the animal heads they were supposed to be shadows of. Fun.
At the end of the photo gallery I’ve tacked on a couple of photos of real shadows I took while I was waiting for the tram to come at one point in Montpellier.
Enjoy.
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- Building with metal animal head sculptures
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- Sculpture and “shadow” – detail #1
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- Sculpture and “shadow” – detail #2
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- Sculptures and “shadows” – detail #3
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- A real shadow across the tram tracks, Montpellier
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- Shadows
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- Shadows on the building – detail
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- A different perspective on those shadows
So dazzling! Do you think a good photo raises more questions than it answers? These certainly do that! Please tell us more about “Sculpture and ‘shadow'” #1,2,3.
Thanks, Will! Re more information, I’m not sure what more I know without going back to Montpellier and asking around until I find out who put this sculpture there. As far as I could tell, the “shadows” were all the same shapes at the metal animal animals, but sometimes in the reverse orientation (as in photo #2), and sometimes a completely different animal altogether (as in photo #1). When viewed from a distance it looked plausible that the shadows of the heads could really have been cast by the metal heads (i.e. it didn’t initially occur to me that all the shadows were painted on). And then when I realized they were painted on, I thought they were just painted on as though they were real. But in looking at the “shadow” in photo #1, and also in the collection of “shadows” in photo #3, you can start to see that the overall effect what that the shadows were not positioned in a way that they could have been realistic shadows, since the shapes didn’t match up right. Intriguing design decision for the painted shadows.
I really loved these. I might do an homage to this work. I have to see. I really like foolin’ the eye.
@Kathy – thanks! I also loved the builing – it was such an intriguing and different idea for the trompe l’oeil.