Optical Illusions
Strange Pictures & Peculiar Landscapes (1)
Places and things that look like they could exist, but can't
Gameboard
See the original pencil drawing by Sandro del Prete
Madonna and Child ~ Adoration of the Magi
from the Pericope of Henry II ~ 1025
This is the oldest known illusion - the central pillar HAS to go behind the figures or it will obscure our view of them.
Section of a Cube
Mitsumasa Anno
A Slightly Difficult Interlocking Wood Puzzle
Mitsumasa Anno
The Magpie on the Gallows
Pieter Breughel ~ 1568
detail from Apolinere Enameled
Marcel Duchamp ~ 1916 - 1917
from Steps or Floor Tiles
Bruno Ernst ~ 1984
The Wearisome and the Easy Way to the Top
Bruno Ernst ~ 1984
Frans Erens
Watercolour ~ 1985
Hogarth's Satire on False Perspective
William Hogarth - 1754
Hogarth's Satire on False Perspective is full of oddities of perspective, scale and vanishing points. Almost every part of the engraving is full of them There are over half a dozen just in this detail from it...
Detail from Hogarth's Satire on False Perspective
William Hogarth - 1754
Samuel Ireland after Hogarth, 1794
The Absurdity of False Perspective
Pen and ink with wash
Samuel Ireland (1744-1800) was a weaver in Spitalfields who turned engraver and print dealer, and became fanatical collector and promoter
The British Museum (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
Steps
Fred van Houten ~ screenprint ~ 1984
Megalithic Monument
Macauley / Ernst ~ Ink drawing
Double Guarded Gateway to the Wintery Arcadia
Jos de Mey ~ Acrylic on canvas ~ 1983
Carefully restored Roman ruin in a forgotten Flemish locality with Oriental
influences
Jos de Mey ~ ink drawing ~ 1983
Caryatids
Oscar Reutersvard / Bruno Ernst