The Fading Auto Industry

May 3, 2009
Posted by Jay Livingston

It's not just American cars that may be vanishing. SocProf posted this picture of a Skoda.


The Czech car is actually there, but artist Sara Watson painted it to make at appear to disappear. (She spent weeks on the project.)

It reminds me of Julian Beever’s sidewalk trompe l’oeil art, with the minor difference that in Watson’s illusion, you don’t see something that really is there. With Beever’s drawings, you do see something, but it isn’t really there. Like this bottle of Coke.


It’s not the real thing – just chalk on a sidewalk.

I guess the sociological lesson is that what you see depends on where you stand. Both Watson’s and Beever’s illusions require the viewer be in just the right spot.. Here’s a Beever drawing, “Baby Food.” When you look at it from the wrong side, the baby is safe.

(Click on the image for a larger view.)

More Beever here.

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