[Tombone5]

Yeah, the article mentions in passing that it could be artistic choice. The observations at the end, where it appears it might be more natural to take the "wrong" stance when holding a running pose is probably the main reason. Couple this with the fact that painted art is fiction (and thus not that concerned about the details), so many painters primarily use other paintings as reference and its not hard to see why this error could survive so long.

Compare this to the portrayal of guns in film for instance, or the sound in space. The survival of the erroneous portrayals in both the case of painting and film probably have very similar explanations.

[tjradcliffe]

The comparison with films is a good one. There is a rich vein of cinematic tropes that are unrelated to the world we live in but dramatically useful. In the movies, everyone still has an answering machine, and cars start--or don't--as if they had carburetors and distributors instead of fuel injection and electronic ignition.