Optical Illusions, A New Book By Paul M. Baars

Painted side of a building in Los Gatos, California (photo 1990 © John Pugh)

There is something intrinsically satisfying about optical illusions – static pictures that appear to move, change color, or fool us into seeing things that “aren’t really there.”

Optical Illusions, a new book by Paul M. Baars, covers illusions of depth, inversions, vibration effects, ambiguous figures, camouflage, anamorphic art, tessellations, and other visual brain teasers. (Yahoo News)

Please click the photos for larger images:

“Glee Turns Glum” drawn by Roger N. Shepard. (© R. N. Shepard. Published in Shepard, R.N. Mind Sights: Original Visual Illusions, Ambiguities, and Other Anomalies. (1990). New York: WH Freeman and Company.)

Liu Bolin with body paint and clothing to match his surroundings in the Teatro alla Scala in 2010 (© Liu Bolin; courtesy of Eli Klein Fine Art, New York)

A classic, simple illusion rendered by Studio PBD in 2012. “Impossible Fork.” © Studio PBD

A 1590 painting by then Italian Giuseppe Arcimboldo, “The Vegetable Gardener.” The left side is rightside-up, and the left is upside-down. Photo by © Erich Lessing / Art Resource, NY. Museo Civico, Cremona, Italy.

Can you find the lion? Rusty Rust, Hidden Lion. Undated. © Reprinted with permission of the artist.