system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
[Harry Potter] If I look at one of the moving paintings with a good magnifying lens while they're moving, would I see the paint itself moving, or just changing colors?

Or would it be something more trippy, like having the motion neurons activated while the conventional image neurons are not perceiving any change or vice-versa? What if I touched the painting, would I feel the texture of the layers of paint changing as they morph into new strokes? Would I feel my skin being dragged along the direction of motion?

Do the motions apply any forces to the canvas fabric itself?
gpt
A paintings are materially non-homogenous.   Colors are of uneven thickness, different materials, and often formed by layers of paint.  As such, the materials would need to be moving or transmuting in place, of the two, the first seems much easier.  The top layer is likely a varnished for preservation, masking movement.  Even bare, the movement may likely be  so subtle it would not be easy to feel most of it.  Although a big glop or thick edge you can feel when it is not moving would be more obvious when it is.

Interestingly, thinking on this strongly hints the background is painted first, then the portrait on top.  So when it moves there is no blank spot.

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Interestingly, an actual photograph would have originally homogeneous materials altered to different states.  So in their case chemical state-changes would be the easier way to go and there would be nothing to feel except, perhaps, heat.