Impossible figures Visual illusions

Among the whole variety of optical illusions a special place is occupied by the so-called impossible figures . Unlike most optical illusions, which are designed to immediately show something unexpected, they are disguised as ordinary objects, and only on closer examination can you see something wrong in them.

Impossible figures became famous after an article by the famous English mathematician Roger Penrose was published in the British Journal of Psychology in 1954. It talked about the endless staircase and the impossible triangle, in which at first glance there is nothing unusual - only three bars connected to each other at right angles. And only upon closer examination do you understand that such a triangle cannot exist in our world.

Penrose's article interested Asher, who wrote three famous lithographs with impossible constructions — Waterfall, Climbing and Descending, and Belvedere. The works of Escher, in turn, inspired the work of many artists around the world.

Impossible trident

The illusion was first published in the magazine "Mad" in 1965 (artist Norman Mingo).

How many columns are there?

The illusion of an Italian restaurant
Find 5 errors

By Gianni A. Sarcone

How many elephant legs?

Posted by Roger Shepard (Roger Shepard)

How many legs does a giraffe have?

The author Anna Kravchenko

Is something wrong with your fingers?

How many dinosaurs are there?

Author Vlad Alekseev

How many shelves are there?

Three or four?

How many elements are there? Six or four?

Endless staircase leading up.

Penrose, LS and Penrose, R. "Impossible Objects: A Special Type of Visual Illusion." Brit. J. Psychology 49 , 31-33, 1958.

Amazing seating.

Impossible Escher Cube.

Another impossible cube

Squared wheel.

Sandro del Prete "Quadrature of the Wheel"

Impossible wheel

Designer "do it yourself."
(Source: North American Aviation's Skywriter, February 18, 1966, Braun & Co., Inc.)

Illusion Reutersvard (Reutersvard, 1934).

Pay attention also to the fact that the change in the “figure-background” organization made it possible to perceive the “star” located in the center.

The Penrose Triangle (Roger Penrose, 1954).

Amazing knot.

Impossible arrangement of pencils

Picture from the cover of the magazine "Quant" 1989, №6

Where is the door open?

Outward or inward?

Impossible window

Sandro del Prete "Impossible window"

Impossible puzzle

By Mitsumasa Anno

Impossible cross section of a cube

By Mitsumasa Anno

Fantastic showcase

Impossible Transformer

Author Vlad Alekseev

Impossible pacific

Endless photography

Another endless photograph (Flash version)

Dmitry Rakov. City. (published with permission).
See other pictures of Dm. Rakov on his site.

Mobius bearing

Strange mirror

Nightmare boy

Parrots around the cage. Artist Jos de Mey.

Jos de Mey (Jos de Mey) was born in 1928 in Belgium. He studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent (Belgium), and then for 39 years he taught students interior design.

Since 1968, leaving the teaching, he focused entirely on drawing. His first works, while still teaching, were based on the use of various mathematical laws and sequences, such as the Fibonacci series and the golden section, but since 1976 he began to use optical illusion with particular expressiveness, along with accurate reproduction of materials and the effect of light and shadow. .

He began to pay great attention to the environment, detailing the sky, grass, trees, houses, water, and so on. The landscapes depicted in the paintings are typical of Flemish, where the artist lives.

Escher Wall Artist Jos de Mey. Master Imparta works in the genre of surrealism. Many of his paintings depict people who were originally characters in paintings by famous Dutch artists, the compatriots of Jos de Mey, M.K. Escher, Peter Bruegel and Rene Magritte.

According to Jos de Mey himself, they play the role of extras, intended to show the scale of the structures. After all, impossible designs are the main part in each picture of the artist.

The structure looks bigger, if people are depicted much smaller structures, and vice versa, the more people in the picture, the smaller the structure looks.

Also, often in the pictures of Jos de Mey depicted owl. This bird in Holland has a double meaning, on the one hand, it is a symbol of theoretical knowledge, and on the other hand, the Dutch owl call a person who looks stupid.

Advertising Audi A6, published in 2006 under the slogan "Whatever the road holds." Audi on the impossible bridge.

An interesting optical anamorphosis of a chessboard. From a certain point of view, a chessboard seems unreal.

“Relativity” is a lithograph by the Dutch painter Escher. It was first printed in 1953.

The lithograph depicts a paradoxical world in which the laws of reality do not apply. In one world, three realities are united, three gravitational forces are directed perpendicularly to one another.

An architectural structure has been created, the realities are united by ladders. For people living in this world, but in different planes of reality, the same ladder will be directed either up or down.

An unusual attraction appeared in 1999 in the Australian city of Perth. The product of the joint work of the artist Brian McKay (Brian McKay) by architect Ahmad Abas (Ahmad Abas) - a huge figure of the “impossible triangle” was erected in Claisebrook Square, in the eastern region of Perth.

In 1997, the leading artists of Australia were invited to submit their projects to the commission on the restructuring of Perth. Each artist participating in the competition was presented with an extensive substantiation of his project. As a result, the number of projects was reduced to three. One of the projects was a project submitted by Brian McKay and Ahmad Abbas. It was adopted with only one amendment, to increase the height of the sculpture from 9 meters, as planned, to 13.5 meters.

The "Endless Ladder" was successfully used by the artist Maurits K. Escher, this time in his enchanting lithograph "Ascent and Descent" created in 1960. In this figure, reflecting all the possibilities of the Penrose figure, the quite recognizable “Infinite Staircase” is neatly inscribed in the roof of the monastery.

Monks in hoods continuously move up and down the stairs in a clockwise direction. They meet each other in an impossible way. They never manage to go up or down. Accordingly, the "Endless Staircase" became more often associated with Escher, who redrawed it, than with the Penroses, who invented it.

Jos de Mey (Jos de Mey) - Flemish artist was born in 1928. He studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent (Belgium), and then taught students interior design and color for 39 years. Since 1968, drawing has become the focus of his attention. He is best known for the careful and realistic execution of impossible structures.

His works follow some ideas of M.K. Escher (MC Escher). They are presented in a style that combines the surrealistic elements of Rene Magritte's paintings (Rene Magritte) with Flemish motifs by Pieter Bruegel and other artists of the lower lands of Europe.

"Belvedere" (Italian. Belvedere) - a picture of the Dutch painter-graphic Maurits Cornelis Escher