I like art and fluvial geomorphology. For years I've collected images of impossible, improbable, and curious representations of fluvial features in art.
I call them geomorphically incorrect.
This example is a stunning painting by Amy Chehore. I love it. It's clearly surreal, we don't expect realistic representation of landforms.
But it's fun to look at a work like this and ask "what's wrong with the geomorphology?" I'm sure you can find a few things, from the boulder (assuming this is a stream and not a lake) on which the banjo player sits to the shape of the scarps behind her.
You could write a nice essay on how the landforms and fluvial features in this painting are impossible or very unlikely (assuming they were formed on Earth, etc.) And also about why and how the artist chose to use those features, but I know nothing about that!
And it's great fun to look at lesser works meant to be representational and figure out whether they were painted from reality or made up. I can do it almost instantly, maybe from years of experience, I'm not sure. That's part of the mystery and fun.
Take this painting I bought on Ebay; it's on glass, from Asia, a mass-produced style commonly done in the 1960's. What's wrong with it?
Is it possible to have twin waterfalls on both sides of a lake like this? Why not?
And this one (an excerpt from a larger drawing) is famous, from a 1970's rock album. Of course those zig zag meanders are unlikely, but what else is wrong?Labels: geomorphically incorrect art
Is it possible to have twin waterfalls on both sides of a lake like this? Why not?