Changing Faces [ILLUSTRATED] (Paperback)

by George Tscherney (Author)
Key Phrases: fragmented face, trade card, Changing Faces, The Unfolding Face, The Fragmented Face (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
Entertaining collection of optical illusions on paper of the past. -- Inside Antiques, December 2004

Product Description
It's the man on the moon, right? Keep looking. Okay -- whoa! -- now it's two lovers moving in for a kiss. Try another. This one? It's a bowl of fruit. Pick it up. Flip it over. Ah...now it's a guy in a helmet! As design historian George Tscherny so readily shows in this endlessly engaging book, perception is a fragile and easily manipulated commodity. Changing Faces presents an idiosyncratic and humorous collection of paintings, drawings, cartoons, masks, toys, advertisements, and other works of ephemera that -- either by flipping or flopping or just plain staring -- somehow transform the human physiognomy. Here you will find optical illusions from the Renaissance, Enlightenment-era political cartoons, and Victorian toys that all start off as one thing and end up as another. Sometimes these mutations were made for fun (give magnetic hair to a bald man!) sometimes for profit (buy a Studebaker!), and sometimes to score a political point (watch a French king turn into a big fat pear!), but the results are always an intriguing pleasure to watch. Not every book on our list promises an afternoon of pleasant diversion -- architecture is serious business -- but we're confident that after a few moments with this volume even the most jaded readers will -- forgive us! -- find their frowns turned upside down.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 132 pages
• Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press; 1 edition (September 30, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1568984804
• ISBN-13: 978-1568984803
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 8.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,805,869 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars A stupendous historical and VISUAL tour-de-force!, September 30, 2008

By	Beyond-Is-Within Also (Pennsylvania, USA) - See all my reviews

This eye-popping book is a must-have title for anyone interested in the history of paper ephemera, mechanical novelty items, visual puns and jokes, or especially the history of popular engraving and color reproduction. Also the history of advertising ephemera.

The range of material and techniques is encyclopedic, but the pictures themselves deserve special comment on their own.

The pix average about 3/page and the color rendering (most are in color) is just delicious -- the best way I know of to get that idiosyncratic/mellow quality of 19th- to early 20th-century color printing -- and pictorial style -- across an amazingly broad creative and artistic spectrum, in a single inexpensive volume. Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous....