Figure/Ground Reversal Analysis

According to Mary Stuart in her textbook, Launching The Imagination, she states, "Figure/Ground reversal occurs when first the positive then the negative shapes command our attention"(p. 13). Then Stuart uses Figure 1.33 in the book to exemplify this type of figure and ground. Figure 1.33 in the book is titled, "M. C. Escher, part of Metamorphosis II, 1939-40" (p. 13). In this book, the figure is a photo of wood that has black and white lizards morphing into hexagons on a grey background. In the text the reader is prompted to interpret the picture from left to right. However, when I analyzed this picture I thought that the movement was from right to left, rather than left to right. I interpreted the photo in this particular way because the movement of the lizards seemed to morph from the hexagons, as if they were walking away from them, as they developed rather than turning into them. I think I interpreted the photo from right to left because I tend to see things that move away from simplicity (the uniform geometric shapes) and toward a more complex creation (the crawling lizards).