Sistine Chapel on a city sidewalk

Glass artist Barbara Bader forwarded an intriguing e-mail today, about Julian Beever, a sidewalk artist who does some amazing trompe l’oeil work in chalk. They never fail to amaze me; I got to see one of these in person, a long time ago in New York, and they’re MUCH better in person than in the photograph.

Mr. Beever puts a considerable amount of effort into calculating perspectives and developing chalk drawings of everything from dead flies to laptop computers to bathing beauties in swimming pools. He sets them down in major metropolitan areas and, particularly when viewed from about 10 feet away at the right angle, the degree of three-dimensionality (and reality) is amazing.

I think he’s now making a living building these things for companies around the world–or at least this latest grouping shows a Sony Vaio notebook–which is great.

I can’t decide which I like most about these things–the fact that they’re so well done, the really fascinating way they’re created (and that moving away from the viewing angle shows a radically different, often unrecognizable image), or that because they’re done in chalk in busy cities they’re largely ephemera–if the foot traffic and street sweepers don’t finish them off, the weather will.

They’re copyrighted, so I really can’t post one here. But his site is definitely worth a visit, and if you ever get a chance to be in the area when he’s making sidewalk art, stop by.

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