Start seeing earlobes.

June 6, 2007 8:26 AM

I don't recall seeing a painting or illustration in which someone has attached earlobes. Why?

Seriously. I'm virtually certain that every painting or drawing of a person with enough detail to show their ears includes detached earlobes on that person, excepting perhaps a few realistic portraits of real-life people. This has turned from a "Huh, that's odd" thing into a "Just what the hell is going on here?" thing for me.

Are the ears just some throwaway detail that doesn't matter? Are detached earlobes just easier to draw or paint? Is it some subconscious bias against attached earlobes? Am I imagining the whole thing?

posted by cog_nate to media & arts (8 comments total)

There's a couple of attached earlobes here.

I'm thinking it's just confirmation bias.

I also think that artists with attached earlobes would paint more attached-earlobe-people, without even realizing it, necessarily.
posted by flibbertigibbet at 8:35 AM on June 6, 2007 [1 favorite]

Just speculation here: Perhaps detached earlobes are more common, as most of the paintings in flibbertigibbet's link seemed to be from models. I am guessing that the artists painted the kinds of earlobes the models had.
posted by brina at 9:00 AM on June 6, 2007

If other artists are like me, they just draw what they see in a lot of cases, without even thinking about it. Especially when doing a portrait; in my experience, becoming too conscious of what you're drawing tends to ruin what little objectivity you have, and wrecks the drawing. This guy seems to have attached earlobes.
posted by interrobang at 9:00 AM on June 6, 2007

"Genetically dominant, free earlobes are twice as common in the human population as attached lobes." Other sources seem to put the ratio at 3:1.

So just a random roll of the dice makes free earlobes more common. Perhaps artists exaggerate this ratio: if they consider "free earlobes" the norm, they may edit attached earlobes to free, on purpose or not. They may also select subjects who match their ideal common ear shape.

As someone with attached earlobes, I find this incredibly unfair. Then again, I'm streamlined. Take that, you floppy dangling detached-lobers. :)
posted by IvyMike at 10:17 AM on June 6, 2007

Because free earlobes are more beautiful. *ducks*
posted by fiercecupcake at 1:09 PM on June 6, 2007

Are the ears just some throwaway detail that doesn't matter?

I think so. I have never in my life paid even a slight bit attention to anyone's earlobes except maybe my own. Thus, if I was painting a picture or sketching something from my mind's eye (which I know is not the case for most painters who are using models), I would probably just use my own ear configuration in my artwork.

So, maybe since more people have detached earlobes, more artists have detached earlobes, and thus they paint more portraits with detached earlobes.
posted by tastybrains at 2:15 PM on June 6, 2007

I think free earlobes are a more iconic ear shape, probably because they are the more common phenotype.

Ears are not very useful in making a likeness work. Unless they are missing or wildly disproportionate no one will really notice if they don't look like the ears of a portrait's subject. Add to this all the images in which likeness isn't an issue and you get a lot of default ear shapes. That is assuming that your hypothesis is true at all.
posted by subtle_squid at 4:57 PM on June 6, 2007

I have no constructive answer, but I read the question as 'a painting to which someone has attached earlobes' and that mental image gave me a good chuckle. Thanks!
posted by corvine at 4:30 AM on June 7, 2007