The world of illusion as you’ve never seen it before:

Here’s the first of a series of half minute or so optical illusion animated cartoons… also available as a Quicktime Movie.

This cartoon features a new version of the well-known rotating heads illusion.

And here’s the second …. also available as a Quicktime Movie.

This cartoon features two kinds of ambiguous images. One is the famous Duck/rabbit illusion and the other a new ambiguous image, first seen on this site, the mask/skull illusion.

More cartoons to follow over the next few weeks, along with illusion posts as last year.

Here’s another ambiguous severed head illusion.  Is Koala thoughtfully holding up the severed head of Woven Person for inspection, or is it the other way round?  You can see it both ways.  For examples of this illusion in earlier posts, check out The Screams after Munch, the Monks, and the Mask/Skull illusion.  (On that link this illusion may be at the top of the page, if so scroll down for the previous versions).

On the right, with apologies to Eduard Munch, I’d like to propose an improvement to his famous picture The Scream.  In my version, the screamer really does have something to scream about:  he’s holding up a duplicate of his own head for inspection.  But which head is the one that’s attached to the body, and which is being held up for inspection?  You can make it work both ways, with the upper head looking down on the lower, handheld one;  or, as if the whole figure was leaning over to the right,  with the lower head looking up at the handheld upper head.  It’s another example of the effect in the Mask/Skull illusion, and in Improved artworks no. 1.  I think I invented it, with a hint from Picasso (see the Mask/skull post).  But I’ll be delighted if you prove me wrong by finding an older version. 

No problem about the title for the improved version, it would have to be The Screams.

Here’s a historic artwork I reckon I’ve much improved.  On the left you see it as has been for the last five hundred years or so, a Spanish (I think) wood carving, of a martyred saint, now in the Petit Palais museum in Paris. On the right I’ve turned it into an ambiguous image, in which it’s not clear which head belongs to the body, and which has been chopped off and is being held up for inspection – I think you’ll agree a far more poignant image.  It’s an illusion in the style of the Mask/Skull illusion posted earlier.

Here’s a version of my adaptation with an evening sky:

Is this a picture of a mask looking at a skull it’s holding up for inspection, or vice versa?

I got the idea from a print by Picasso, Young man with mask of a bull, faun and profile of a woman. There’s a copy in the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, and you can see it by calling up,

http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/simple_search

search for Picasso, scroll down the results and you’ll find it!