The art of the float

For more than 2000 years, artists have exploited cast shadows to influence how objects appear to be positioned in a scene. A contact cast shadow can anchor an object to the ground and a detached cast shadow can make an object appear to float. However, there is a period of approximately 1000 years when there were virtually no cast shadows in art. How were states of contact versus floating depicted by artists without cast shadows? Here, we survey various techniques used by artists to anchor relative position with and without cast shadows. We then conduct experimental tests of the hypothesized surface attraction principles that underlie these techniques. In the absence of cast shadows, an object (a wooden box) was often seen as resting on a surface as long as that surface offered information about ground orientation and support (a tiled floor). When the ground surface was ambiguous and cloud-like (1/f noise), the box was more likely to be seen to float. The presence of cast shadows made the box appear to contact the ground whether it was well-defined or ambiguous. Both shadows and surface support also increased the accuracy with which participants detected when the box was tilted up from the ground. These results indicate that artists long ago discovered the important power of support relationships to anchor objects to surfaces in the absence of shadows.