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Optical illusions & the art of seeing

Explore optical illusions, impossible objects and illusion art with pictures, viewing instructions and explanations. Follow the science and history behind each example, from classic visual puzzles to fractals and camouflage in nature and human design.

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The collection

A repeating black-and-white sawtooth strip on grey with ambiguous depth orientation.

Sawtooth Ambiguous Figure

Peter Ulrich Tse, neuroscientist

You should experience a 'Gestalt switch' between experiencing the triangles as pointing downwards and resting on the dark grey lower plane, or as pointing upwards and resting on a light…

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An upright line meeting the midpoint of an equal-length horizontal line.

Horizontal–vertical illusion

Nineteenth-century researchers including J. J. Oppel

The upright line seems longer than its equal horizontal partner.

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Escher’s Belvedere: people occupy a pavilion whose columns connect incompatible upper and lower levels.

Belvedere

Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898 - 1972), Dutch graphic artist.

You should experience a sense of perceptual confusion as you note the paradoxical nature of the building and other features in the lithographic print.

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Three cylindrical prongs apparently connected to two rectangular supports.

Impossible trident

Original creator uncertain; reported by D. H. Schuster

Three prongs quietly become two supports.

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The Vegetable Gardener — A bowl of vegetables becomes a face when the image is turned upside down.

The Vegetable Gardener

Giuseppe Arcimboldo

A bowl of vegetables becomes a face when the image is turned upside down.

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An outlined triangle at the centre of a clock-face arrangement of numbers in the Pointing Triangle figure.

Pointing Triangle

Stephen Palmer, psychologist at UC Berkeley.

You should experience a 'Gestalt switch' between seeing the triangle as 'pointing' in each of the three directions corresponding to its angles.

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Gray patches interrupting alternating black and white horizontal stripes.

White’s illusion

Michael White

Equal gray bars look different inside a striped pattern.

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A person crouches beside a colourful pavement painting that appears to open into a deep landscape.

Pandora

Tracy Lee Stum, an American artist

You should have the visual experience of a man riding a mythical bird. However, although the man is real, the bird is just a cleverly constructed 2D drawing on the pavement.

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Apollonian Gasket — Tangent circles fill gaps with smaller and smaller circles.

Apollonian Gasket

Classical circle geometry; later mathematical development

Tangent circles fill gaps with smaller and smaller circles.

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Offset rows of alternating black and white tiles separated by straight gray lines.

Café wall

Richard Gregory & Priscilla Heard; observed by Steve Simpson

Perfectly parallel mortar lines seem to slope.

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The Ambassadors — A double portrait with a skull that emerges from an oblique view.

The Ambassadors

Hans Holbein the Younger

A double portrait with a skull that emerges from an oblique view.

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Three rectangular beams joined in an apparently solid triangular loop.

Penrose triangle

Oscar Reutersvärd; independently Lionel & Roger Penrose

Three convincing corners. One impossible connection.

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A person stands beside a pavement painting that appears to open into a vast blue crevasse.

The Crevasse

Edgar Müller (1968 –), a German illusionist street painter

You should have the visual experience of a woman seeming to stand on top of a crevasse. However, although the woman is real, the crevasse is just a cleverly constructed 2D drawing on the…

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Impossible Valknut — Three interwoven triangles hide several impossible connections.

Impossible Valknut

AnonMoos

Three interwoven triangles hide several impossible connections.

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Enlarged image from the selected gallery entry