Product Description

The definitive book of optical illusions featuring works by Escher and Dali. With delightful trickery and visual puns, this book features: colour illustrations throughout; astonishing creations by masters of the art, such as Escher, Dali, and Archimbolo; amazing visual trickery; and an illuminating foreword by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Douglas R. Hofstadter makes this 320-page, breathtaking collection the definitive book of optical illusions. Rings of seahorses that seem to rotate on the page. Butterflies that transform right before your eyes into two warriors with their horses. A mosaic portrait of oceanographer Jacques Cousteau made from seashells. These dazzling and often playful artistic creations manipulate perspective so cleverly that they simply outwit our brains: we can't just take a quick glance and turn away. They compel us to look once, twice, and over and over again, as we try to figure out exactly how the delightful trickery manages to fool our perceptions so completely. Of course, first and foremost, every piece is beautiful on the surface, but each one offers us so much more. Some, including Sandro del Prete's charming "Window Gazing," construct illusionary worlds where normal conceptions of up, down, forward, and back simply have no meaning anymore. Others, such as Jos De Mey's sly "Ceci n'est pas un Magritte," create visual puns on earlier work. From Escher's famous and elaborate "Waterfall" to Shigeo Fukuda's "Mary Poppins," where a heap of bottles, glasses, shakers, and openers somehow turn into the image of a Belle Epoque woman when the spotlight hits them, these works of genius will provide endless enjoyment and food for thought.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #195397 in Books
• Published on: 2006-03-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 320 pages

Customer Reviews

Very entertaining book
Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/review/R1XT5QD113IL7L his book is a delightful treat to anyone who loves optical illusion.

Here's a quote from the author, Al Seckel, in the introduction:



In researching and presenting optical illusions to wide audiences, I have found that their effect on people is very primal. It does not matter how old they are, how artistic they are, how intelligent they are, what their background or culture is; people just love optical illusions and enjoy being deceived in a delightful and surprising way.



He has done a terrific job at research on the subject, collecting over hundreds of paintings all the way back from the 16th century. Many of the optical illusions found on the Internet are just extensions or interpretation of these masterpieces.

There are 20 artists featured in the book. Every one comes with a well written introduction and a gallery of their best work. While the book can't print all the art work for each artist, it has packed enough to entertain for hours. Each is also captioned to explain the idea and inspiration behind.

There's an incredible array of artistic style used in creating optical illusions. There's Escher who plays with perspective, Shigeo Fukuda who works with light and shadow and many more.

This is a very entertaining book.

There are more pictures of the book on my blog. Just visit my Amazon profile for the link.

Visual Illusion in Art - A Must Buy Book!
This is a fantastic value book - great if you are particularly interested in visual illusion in art or it also makes a lovely coffee table book that you can just pick up and flick through whenever it takes your fancy!

The book covers 20 different types of visual illusion (e.g. visual suprise, paradoxical worlds, change of perspective, optical llusion, impossible figures etc) by focusing on the work of 20 different artists including Salvador Dali, Sandro Del-Prete and Escher. The layout is clean and simple and there are plenty of pictures to peruse! You also get information/background on each artist and their work so the book is a good all-rounder if you are a student.

In summary, a must-buy for any art enthusiast but you don't have to love art to love this book as it's such a joy to look through! I notice new things every time I pick this one off the shelf - highly recommended!

happy
Ordered this book as a gift and was really happy that it arrived on time in excellent condition - well worth it!!