Optical Illusions in Art, Part 3

"QUANTUM SHOT" #334(rev) Link - article by Avi Abrams We love it when pictures play with our minds Careful! Don't hurt your brain looking at these images. Better yet, warp your brain into another dimension. To achieve different angle, illusion or an unusual effect with only two-dimensional picture is a challenge many photographers and artists can't seem to pass by. The three-dimensional sculptures can increase the desired "I simply can not believe this is real" effect. But in every occasion we keep asking ourselves how this trick was pulled off, or even conceived - and such mind-games only add to the visual magic. "The House, that Swift Built" (image credit: Anna Gunter) (image credit: Josh Sommers) (image credit: Josh Sommers) (image credit: Istvan Orosz) Did you know that some illusions can actually be constructed in real life? - (image credit: Shigeo Fukuda.html) Aldo Cavini Benedetti made the working model of M. C. Escher's "Ascending and Descending" using a toy "Geomag" constructor set: (image credit: Aldo Cavini Benedetti) This video is almost out-of-this-world: The "Impossible Triangle" is also possible to make, see the instructions here - with a printable template from that site, anybody can make it! (images credit: Scott Henderson, Simon Scott) Almost Real: Illusions in Art One certain way to prompt the viewer to look twice at the picture is to create a "topsy-turvy" images, which have a separate meaning depending on orientation: (images credit: Sandro del Prete) (images credit: Sandro del Prete) Transformations & hidden figures! A new meaning for "suggestive" painting - (image credit: Sandro del Prete) This "Tree of Faces" is a classic: An Animal "Matryoshka": ... and a hidden Mona Lisa: (original unknown) This is a screenshot from the movie "Alexander". An interesting effect, but perhaps not that many people notice: (right image credit: Jonathon Bowser) (images credit: Octavio Ocampo) Impossible Geometry These artists can not revise the basic foundations of perspective and geometry, but they can certainly fool the eye of a viewer: (left: art by Dirk Huizer; right image credit: Sandro del Prete) (images credit: Sandro del Prete, Hermann Paulsen) (left: art by Zenon Kulpa; middle image: Natalia Ivanova; right image: Istvan Orosz) Right image above: "The Magic Window" by Istvan Orosz. Paintings by Flemish artist Jos de Mey continue in the "old Belgian masters" traditional style, only with one exception: they clearly show impossible landscapes: (images credit: Jos de Mey) Other "impossible art" painters: (images credit: Jos de Mey, Irvine Peacock) (images credit: Irvine Peacock, Walter Wick) Great "recursion" effect: (image credit: Norman Parker) Wrap your mind around this geometry: "Impossible Triangles", done by Oscar Reutersvärd, Sweden (1934): (images credit: Oscar Reutersvärd) Russian designer Dmitry Rakov went even further, creating the "impossible alphabet": (image credit: Dmitry Rakov) See another alphabet made from impossible figures on this page. Here is one interesting puzzle (left) the "impossible labyrinth" (right): (images credit: Gianni Sarconi, Dmitry Rakov) If your kid has some trouble assembling the toy, maybe he's got instructions like this? (left image below; on the right is "snakes on a... thing") - (left image credit: Govert Shilling; right image: art by Peter Raedschelders) Sometimes the confusing effect is all-too-easily achieved: (original unknown) You can use money bills, or magazines to make some illusions: (right image credit: Meg Picard) See more of this interesting effect here. Illusions in advertising: The following is not an optical illusion, but a good test of your "attention to detail": How many "F"s are in this sentence? FINISHED FILES ARE THE RE- SULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTIF- IC STUDY COMBINED WITH THE EXPERIENCE OF MANY YEARS Scroll down for answer... in the meantime, see if you can spot anything wrong with this image: (image credit: planetperplex) ANSWER: There are six F's in the sentence. There is no catch. Many people forget the F in "OF", and that word appears three times in the sentence. The human brain tends to see them as V's and not F's! If you spotted four, five, or even all six, well you beat the average! Life imitates illusion Do you remember M. C. Escher's "impossible staircases"? well, somebody found the similar structure somewhere in Russia: Article by Avi Abrams, Dark Roasted Blend. CONTINUE TO THE NEXT PART -> READ THE PREVIOUS PART HERE -> READ PART ONE HERE ->