Identify and log some examples of optical illusions. This could be as simple as gathering and reflecting on examples online or from books in your local library, or you could have a go at producing an optical illusion yourself, such as photographing what happens when a variety of objects are observed through a glass of water, for example.
Whichever approach you choose, record your response to your findings in your log, how does the illusion work? Is the illusion immediately apparent or do you need to study it at some length?
Above left: The ceiling in an Italian palace, where else!? I haven’t experienced it but reading about it, Mantegna has used such a keen capacity to foreshorten that it gives the illusion of an expanding space above people’s head and thus gains lots of depth.
Above right: Using a vanishing point in the middle from where an explosion of circles from smaller to larger radiate out (or implode in?) gives a strange effect while also managing to create the illusion of a woman’s face overall. I think you do see the face straight away and my eyes are pulled inwards then back out through the lines used.
Reference: Grovier, K. (2022)
Above left: Roberto Gonsalves creates some fantastic melding of worlds from a bridge that, on closer look is made up of clouds, space and morphs into sailing ships. Even the wooden parts of the ships as they go off into the distance start to look like far away land across an ocean where the bridge is connected.
Above right: The same artists uses different sizes of objects in odd ways that make no sense e.g. fence the same height as a building, a garden that also looks like central park in the midst of built up New York on the left and a garden picket fence on the right. Make the figure on the left smaller and more in tune with the buildings behind gives depth and distance.
Reference: Dovas (2022)
Above left and right: Even shutter stock had some digital optical illusions and these seem to actually move when you look at them and even more when you look near them but not directly at them!! It’s a strange trick of the eye and when you concentrate on one spot they stop moving entirely it’s quite dizzying. Also known as the Peripheral Drift Illusion, by putting contrasting colours in different ways, (stepwise luminance profiles) particularly when these have clear separations rather than gradients.
Reference: Stock photo and image
Above left: These are Akiyoshi Kitaoka’s famous optical illusions – also using Peripheral Drift illusion to create circular movement in this one – very much looking like snakes. It’s quite creepy how they move around when you focus on one or move the eyes around!
Above top right: Same artist, this movement is more diagonal and wavy like a breeze through a field, in this case a Primrose field. This one moves slower and is less hectic than the snakes. It seems like alternating red and white squares between the circles gives this wave impression despite all the circles being the same size!
Above bottom right: Same artist, using circles that get more squashes in places to give the effect of three cylinders with the middle parts protruding from the painting quite a lot and the squashes circles giving the curve to it.
Reference: The Journal of Illusion (no date)
Above left: Oleg Shupliak is a Ukrainian artist that has a really whimsical style and has created lots of paintings with a double image or meaning which takes a few seconds to see. This one is both the face of a main taking up the whole painting but then you see thet theres is a man inside that face sitting playing a lute of some kind and sitting in a field! Perhaps less classic idea of an optical illusion.
Above middle and right: Same artist, the painting is shown in both landscape and vertical so you can see the two people kissing or the landscape with reflective water. I really like the landscape and the gleamy colours
Reference: His website https://www.shupliak.com
Above left: Jim Lambie’s folded coloured metallic pages and reflective surfaces create a strange effect with the light and forest being reflected and the colours creating depth. The middle one almost seems like a precious stone reflecting lots of sides. The top left part has a reflection due to the bevel of the metallic part in the front it creates more depth. Using different sizes of squares and rectangles makes you eyes go in and out of the detail.
Above right:Victor Vasarely’s abstract painting looks like a 60’s style glitter ball emerging from a wall! Using larger geometric shapes and wrapping them round a ball shape by making this smaller and more side-on angled gets this protrusion that is quite dynamic. The flatness of the ‘wall’ part is captured with no movement and just the same shapes and sizes repeated across the pattern.
Reference: Seven artists inspired by the OP Art Movement
Above both: Damien Gilley creates a stunning depth with all these lines and perspective despite it being on a flat surface. These are really interesting and the right hand side one is reminiscent of the trial from the last exercise of using thicker lines for the ‘foreground’ vs thinner lines for things further away that help give importance or focus to where it desired to get, in this case, a stronger foreground and protrusion of the ‘corner’ that is closest to the viewer. The left one is more inward looking like you are looking through a set of buildings and cubes or something inside a digital matrix which also has some thicker lines for the foreground and even in the background, lines that are closer together and thinner (the final triangular building in the centre) which give the sense of even more distance.
Reference: (Medina, L. 2013)
Above: Julian Beaver creates amazing chalk pavement art works that use perspective in a way that is quite terrifying – like the floor beneath you is giving way to a whole new world. The real couple on a bench perched at the top of a ferris while that then rotates down and round into the earth is quite genius – and scary as the people start falling off! The same is terrifying to see a real toddler seem to peer over the edge of a very high skyscraper with the people below as small as ants. He plays with dimension, reality and perspective in a really impactful way!
Reference: (Medina, L. 2013)
Above left: Felice Varini uses simplistic geometric shapes that look like they have been photoshopped over regular rooms, living spaces and buildings. From another angle, they appear to be fragmented pieces haphazardly painted in various areas. This is a technique called anamorphosis to trick the eye to see a complete object from a certain point. In this case, circles that make it look like there is a wall with circles on it in the foreground even though there is nothing – just well places circles throughout a hallway and using the door at the end – I imagine walking through it to be a bit destabilising.
Above middle and right: Same artist and how he managed to do this across a Swiss Alpine village is confounding and really entertaining! Only at one point will you see the full circles and from other other point you see fragmented pieces of circle across different buildings at different distances. The amount of precision and measuring this must have taken is impressive.
Reference: (Medina, L. 2013)
Some general reflections:
- I didn’t know optical illusions came from the Op Art movement of the 60’s – these are the more original or classic? optical illusion art that used purely geometric forms as the basis for its effects as well as colour theory and the physiology and psychology of perception.
- Though when you search for optical illusion art, there is a lot more variety out there now as per the above – from superimposing two images, to hidden images inside an image or strange paintings that defy gravity and reality or using line and perspective on flat surfaces to get depth and protrusion – this kind of art seems to be quite a determined and specific way of working to get a specific effect.
- I did wonder to what extent some artists might not accept some of this as optical illusions but I like the idea of any kind of trick that creates movement, or depth or unveils something hidden as an optical illusion and so I tried to capture the variety of what I found.
References:
Grovier, K. (2022) Eight of the most mind-bending optical illusions in art, BBC Culture. BBC. Available at: https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20160518-eight-of-the-greatest-optical-illusions-in-art (Accessed: February 26, 2023).
Dovas (2022) 25 mind-twisting optical illusion paintings by Rob Gonsalves, Bored Panda. Bored Panda. Available at: https://www.boredpanda.com/magic-realism-paintings-rob-gonsalves/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic (Accessed: February 26, 2023).
Stock photo and image portfolio by Perepadia y (no date) Shutterstock. Available at: https://www.shutterstock.com/g/yuriiperepadia (Accessed: February 26, 2023).
The Journal of Illusion (no date) Akiyoshi’s illusion pages. Available at: https://www.ritsumei.ac.jp/~akitaoka/index-e.html (Accessed: February 26, 2023).
Home (no date) Shupliak. Available at: https://www.shupliak.com/ (Accessed: February 26, 2023).
Jos De Mey | 9 artworks | mutualart (no date). Available at: https://www.mutualart.com/Artist/Jos-De-Mey/BC7739B489C84210/Artworks (Accessed: February 26, 2023).
Brad (2012) Impossible owl tower by Jos de Mey, An Optical Illusion. Available at: https://www.anopticalillusion.com/2012/04/impossible-owl-tower-by-jos-de-mey/ (Accessed: February 26, 2023).
Seven artists inspired by the OP Art Movement (no date) Seven artists inspired by the Op Art movement | Art UK. Available at: https://artuk.org/discover/stories/seven-artists-inspired-by-the-op-art-movement (Accessed: February 26, 2023).
Medina, L. (2013) Look twice: 10 artists who specialize in optical illusion, pastemagazine.com. Paste Magazine. Available at: https://www.pastemagazine.com/design/look-twice-10-artists-who-specialize-in-optical-illusion/ (Accessed: February 26, 2023).
Tate (no date) Op art, Tate. Available at: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/o/op-art (Accessed: February 26, 2023).
Jo's Illustration Learning Blog 