Nobody Knows What Running Looks Like | Hacker News Reader

Nobody Knows What Running Looks Like

theatlantic.com

73 pointstokenadult50 comments

> In fact, for all the studying of the human form we humans do every day, we’re terrible at replicating and identifying the correct walking or running posture.

There may very well be unique difficulties with running too, but I'd argue that what we are terrible at is replicating and identifying 3D scenes from 2D in general (and vice versa), to the point where it takes a great deal of attention to detail to create 2D representation of 3D that most people can easily relate to.

My goto example is Lego. Lego gets usually gets it right in their build instructions. Most of their competitors don't. Find some build instructions from any of the second-tier brand of building blocks, and it's often _far_ harder to relate the depictions in the instruction booklets to the in-progress models even if the sets are simple.

Part of this is probably that most people are really bad at actually watching mundane stuff with sufficient focus, even when drawing it right then and there, and instead tends to draw (usually inaccurate-but-good-enough) abstractions, and it's not surprising people get this wrong.

Another example of what people often get wrong which is trivial to get "right" if you actually look: Draw a sunset over water, with the sun still above the horizon, with the suns reflections. This is a thing we've almost all seen lots of times - at least in pictures. Yet people often gets the reflections entirely wrong (compare a google image search for sunset photos vs. sunset drawings; on the other hand the paintings mostly get it right) even though this is down to recognising and remembering a trivial geometric layout.

As artist, you would want to draw persons facing towards viewer. It makes pictures usually more compelling. When drawing correctly, you would efficiently cover half the body or rotate the person away from the viewer.

Running is awkward pose, as half the body seems to be rotated the other way always. But in a art, it is preferable to have subject moving one certain way.

So it is only natural to pose people like this, if you are uncertain how they are in real life or it does not matter. Because it is way more aesthetically and understandable for the viewer. In creek example, you could show persons genitals and upper muscular body, not only one of them.

Yeah, the article mentions in passing that it could be artistic choice. The observations at the end, where it appears it might be more natural to take the "wrong" stance when holding a running pose is probably the main reason. Couple this with the fact that painted art is fiction (and thus not that concerned about the details), so many painters primarily use other paintings as reference and its not hard to see why this error could survive so long.

Compare this to the portrayal of guns in film for instance, or the sound in space. The survival of the erroneous portrayals in both the case of painting and film probably have very similar explanations.

The comparison with films is a good one. There is a rich vein of cinematic tropes that are unrelated to the world we live in but dramatically useful. In the movies, everyone still has an answering machine, and cars start--or don't--as if they had carburetors and distributors instead of fuel injection and electronic ignition.

That occurred to me, too. Also, it would be easier to draw the unnatural pose. For one, it straightens out the body. Two, you can have a model stand in the unnatural pose, because it's stable. Once the masters used this pose, it would have become a kind of canonical pose that later artists imitated. The opinion of an art historian would be worth hearing.

Some of the examples given are fairly dubious, were those really intended to be running? I'll grant the Greek vase but the statue of Khonsu has the left arm forward not in a running motion, but to grip his staff, which has gone missing from this statue. It's his standard pose. I'm not saying the thesis is wrong, just that seems to be a bad example.

I can't remember the title, but I vividly remember reading this description of a naturally athletic person in a novel when I was a kid: "He was a gifted sort of person, his left foot naturally followed his right arm."

Or something to that extent. I don't know why that stuck in my mind to this day, probably because at the time I was the exact opposite of such a person.

Also, I just tried the "mimic a static part of running" and I figured out why I got it wrong, despite having just run 5km this morning. My left foot was forward and so was my left arm. BUT, when I played out the motion to its end I figured out why - my back foot was about to swing forward and my front arm was about to swing backwards. So it was actually correct even though it might seem wrong upon casual inspection.

that's what it feels like is going on in the japanese example, and I have trouble believing donatello's angel isn't supposed to look that off-balance and dynamic.

also the french figure looks like he's doing something weird with a stick, and only the center, standing figure on the new yorker cover is "homolateral", which I think adds to the intended effect.

one could say it appears that "Rose Eveleth" enjoys writing more than critical research.

This didn't ring true for me at all. The first thing i do if someone asks me to draw a running person is to imagine myself running. And that picture is the correct one. It's hardly a conscious thought - it's just reflex. Imagining myself with both right leg and arm extended is painful and requires mental contortions.

Now I may still create a poor representation of a running person but that's due to my artistic ability, not my internal representation of running.

I once took a class on tracking. When the instructor discussed gaits, he said when an animal is being aggressive, its gait will change and it will swing the legs on each side of the body together, instead of alternating normally.

He said it's true of humans too. If someone walks toward you the way these artists depicted, he's ready to fight. If he's mouthing off but walking normally, you're probably safe.

I have no scientific references to back any of this up so take it for what it's worth. The instructor was someone who tracks down a lot of lost people and fugitives for law enforcement, along with teaching survival classes.

(And this was walking, not running. He didn't claim anyone would run this way.)

That's how I read the status of Khonsu. He's not generically "running", he's coming for you.

I imagine the situation is slightly different for a quadruped gait than for a biped like us... but even walking like this looks profoundly weird if you see it in real life.

If someone glared at me across a rowdy bar, then walked towards me with a matched arm/leg gait, I would be rather more likely to burst out laughing than feel threatened.

I personally have no trouble noticing when this is wrong in drawings -- recently I saw that the RyanAir instructions on how to exit an aircraft get this wrong in a few places! -- but that's perhaps because when I was a child my siblings and I actually talked about this problem. E.g., if my little sister made this error in a drawing, my brother or I would point it out (not too unkindly, I hope) and demonstrate exactly what it looks like in real life to walk/run that way. I also remember just breaking into this kind of matched run spontaneously just to get a laugh. People who have never seen it before recognize instantly that something is dreadfully wrong, but it can take them a moment to figure out what's awry.

It's honestly hilarious to watch someone run this way -- I highly recommend trying it for entertainment purposes.

There's one exceptional circumstance when this is the natural gait: if you have a child sitting on each of your feet, and you are walking while dragging them along. THEN you need the extra lurch to help you keep moving.

The instructor demonstrated. It actually looked pretty intimidating. I guess whether it's laughable or scary depends on other aspects of the person's stance.

It's not so much walking across the entire bar, as taking the last few steps leading up to hitting you.

Consider http://www.nytimes.com/1999/04/18/weekinreview/walk-this-way...

There are names for these different gaits in horses[1]. The difference between the natural and unnatural running motions seems to be exactly equivalent to the difference between a trot and a pace.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horse_gait

A side-angled fighting stance presents less of a target to your opponent and puts both limbs on that side in position to shield the torso and head from blows.

http://chinesemartialstudies.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/bru...

https://www.balazsboxing.com/thegym/boxingbasics_stance.htm

If you want to move in that posture, you either have to shuffle sideways, or alternate sides as you move.

looking at google images results [1] it seems like most paintings get it right, although it might be a biased sample

update: searching for "running cartoon" the number of wrong poses increases significantly(I guess unsurprisingly)

[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=running+painting&tbm=isch [2] https://www.google.com/search?q=running+cartoon&tbm=isch

A search for running drawing also has pretty much every result in the correct pose: https://www.google.com/search?q=running+drawing&tbm=isch

Even in the cartoons it seems most are correct. As someone who first learned how to focus and get-things-right by drawing at an early age and since, I found it pretty unlikely this premise could be correct.

Not thrilled with the drawing guides either. All I can tell you is I never draw from a picture and I never make this error. Nor it seems to most of the people on google images.

That was good of you to look for examples. But I wonder how many paintings that we can find with Google searches are based on photographs. I've encountered visual artists who can usually tell the difference between a drawing done from life and a drawing done from a photograph (my eye is not that subtle), so I think there are quite a few people who draw by looking at photographs. A study of the issue described in the article would probably want to look at visual art from a time before photography, and there is plenty of that in the world.

Reminds me of the lack of old paintings where the moon is out in the day. There are still some (not very observant) people wondering around who think the moon only comes out at night. A friend and I spent a while arguing with someone who swore that the clearly visible moon must be a funny round cloud as it was daytime.

edit - I would love for someone to point me out a sunlit painting with the moon visible that predates the 20th century, I haven't yet found one, though my search has not been exhaustive.

Crucifixion paintings can have both sun and moon in them, as in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crucifixion_darkness#mediaviewe... , but as it's supposed to symbolize darkness during the daytime, it strengthens your point, not weakens is.

What about (and this took quite a bit of searching) Van Gogh's "Cypresses" (http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/49.30 1889)? "Road with Cypresses" (http://www.wikiart.org/en/vincent-van-gogh/road-with-cypress... 1890) has both the sun and the moon in the sky.

For some reason I hadn't thought about checking Van-Gogh, I was looking mostly through much older stuff. Thanks for that. :)

I like your observation, btw. It is interesting that the only counter-examples I could find were either done by a post-Impressionist in an asylum, or as an explicit invocation of the supernatural. I would prefer to have found an example made by a realist.

Alas, internet search technology doesn't yet handle "pre-20th century paintings showing a daylight moon."

That seems relevant. I have a feeling that it's not that people hadn't noticed the pattern followed by the moon (people knew a lot about the sky back then, apparently, probably because people looked at it more and more carefully since there were no wristwatches, weather reports, or televisions). I have a feeling that the reason has more to do with the moon being a symbol of night. I know very little about art history, but I've made the observation that symbols and artistic precedent are extremely important, probably much more than naturalism.

Well, I cannot find a real source right now but if you look at the same problem for horses, the thing goes to the limit (four legs in the air, all stretched, the back ones to the back, the front ones to the front).

tl;dr: Forward arm and forward leg are on opposite sides, but many old pictures show them on the same side.

"Nobody" is a strong word though. I guess most artists nowadays get it right. At least people in animations/computer games.

Correct pose: http://www.angryanimator.com/tut/pic/002_walkcycle/wlk08.gif

I agree, modern artists seem to study the proper form. Take The Flash for example, a Google Image search shows that even the Golden Age (1930s) artists got it right

Highly recommend trying to mimic the drawings, it feels hilarious!

Right leg forward, right arm forward. Left leg forward, left arm forward

I tried to do it; walking was possible with a weird sway of the upper body, while running is impossible.

Running is totally possible! Perhaps it just takes a bit of practice. It's involves a lot of awkward lurching.

Try not moving the torso at all, and keep your hands in front of your thighs. Simply flip your palm up and slightly forwards when you want that leg to move forwards, It's called Namba Aruki in japan.

Walking like that is only something I ever do when being instructed to march by shouty people, who then proceed to get unbelievably pissed off about it. This is not intentional and I find it very hard to end up doing this in any other circumstances, it just seems like my subconscious enjoys causing me shit.

Just gonna drop this link here: http://www.tofugu.com/2012/07/24/namba-aruki-samurai-walk/ by moving both sides at the same time, it keeps twisting the torso to a minimum, you don't tire out as fast. It also helps keep your balance centered.

> But if you were asked to draw a person running, many of you would have the resulting stick figure (and let’s be real, you’d draw a stick figure) moving their right arm and right leg forward at the same time.

A stick figure running does not have an identifiable left or right side...

I'm surprised by the modern mistakes -- I would have thought that any post-Muybridge[1] drawing would get it right.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eadweard_Muybridge

This reminded me of the epic running scene "World Record" of the Animatrix film. [0]

The director of the scene Takeshi Koike said the following: "When I first read the story, one thing that really excited me and that I thought could add something that no one else could do, was the running in the sprint. I thought I could draw that in a unique way."

[0] Synopsis: http://youtu.be/rYBcz9B6D20?t=2m36s

There is just no way this is true. I mean there must be millions of examples of it done the right way from all throughout history. Picking a few awkward examples without context does not constitute research. I would expect this paper to get a barely passing grade from a high school teacher.

Yep. It's a great example of how cherry picking can be used to completely misrepresent reality.

Where is your counterexample, especially a counterexample from a time before when photography was invented, which is what I would expect to see a link to after a statement like that?

For you and for anyone else who would like to read a really deep, interesting book about how visual art has developed over the history of humankind (and about many other issues), I recommend The Nature of Paleolithic Art[1] by R. Dale Guthrie, a book I enjoyed reading several years ago. Guthrie is a field biologist and very competent visual artist who specializes in Pleistocene megafauna like mammoths. He went to most of the oldest sites of surviving cave art and personally looked at ancient drawings on site as he studied examples of early art for his book. He devotes pages of thoughtful discussion to what early human drawings show and what drawing problems early artists encountered. He specifically mentions the problem of drawing running human beings and running four-legged animals.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/The-Nature-Paleolithic-Dale-Guthrie/dp...

"just now way this is true" is almost as absolute a statement. How about looking at a random amount of examples, creating an experiment and discovering the actual truth.

this is very funny. i used to be in the Air Cadets ( in canada ) and when we were learning to march, if you "thought" too much about it you would do exactly what the artists error on ...we called it "bear marching" ..it was a rather hilarious thing snd no doubt would receive a dose of yelling from the corporal or sergeant running drill.

"tick tocking" was what we called it in our sea cadets corp. It is surprisingly hard to get it right without practice (and then I guess less conscious thought)

I always thought the people posed like that in art were leaping, or gesticulating, or marching in a stylized way. It never looked like running to me, particularly the old art. Maybe I do notice that kind of thing?

The Utamuro doesn't look wrong, though. Just looks like the guy is pushing her along and looking backward.

My unscientific poll says otherwise:

https://www.google.com/search?q=drawing+running&tbm=isch

I think Imperial College London does.

http://www1.imperial.ac.uk/msklab/facilities/

Ministry of Silly Walks Does Not Know What Running Looks Like

Would runners draw people running differently than non-runners?

Everybody is a runner by the definition of competence required for drawing.

Runners might spend more time thinking about running and what they look like while doing it though.

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