I enjoy isometric projection. You all know the isometric cube from video games:
An isometric cube’s lines are all the same length and shows all three sides equally. It is thus unnatural, assuming that seeing things from a particular perspective is natural.
This makes isometric cubes similar to Egyptian paintings, at least as E.H. Gombrich explains them.
Paintings in the Egyptian style — face in profile, torso turned out towards us, legs apart and in profile — are unrealistic: people don’t stand that way, just as cubes seen from a human perspective don’t show themselves the isometric way.
Gombrich talks about Egyptian paintings to make a point: our idea about what’s realistic is more infected with cultural norms than we usually think. The Egyptian stance seemed to them to be realistic because it shows the parts of the human form in the view that conveys the most information, or at least what the Egyptians considered to be the most distinctive view.
And the same is true of isometric cubes.
