Optical Illusions » Ambiguous images

Native Canadian Ambiguous Art

david — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 17:14:26 +0000

Depending how you see it, this panel either shows two killer whales looking at one another in profile, or a bear looking at you head on – the killer whales’ fins top centre become the bears’ ears. And then the killer whales’ tails centre bottom become the mouth of a third creature, probably a frog, [...]

Hybrid Portraits

david — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 17:40:37 +0000

Hybrid portraits superimpose one portrait on top of another, so that one appears with close viewing, and the other emerges with more distant viewing. Or with reduced image size. Or just by taking off your specs, if you are just a little way away and are seriously short-sighted. Whatever works for you, here Charlie Chaplin becomes [...]

Hidden Message

david — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 14:49:25 +0000

Can you read the message encoded in the image? A few months back I posted about embedding hidden messages in images. Since then I’ve come across a much better way of doing it, using the lettering in the image above. Lettering? What lettering? You may not even have been able to spot the lettering [...]

Judith with the Head of Holofernes – or is it the other way round?

david — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 14:49:49 +0000

Who owns the body? Judith does to start with, but then Holofernes does, and finally, it’s ambiguous. Here’s a new addition to our series of ambiguous improved artworks. Apologies this time are due to Rubens. I got the idea for these illusions from a print by Picasso. For a downloadable [...]

Arcimboldo exhibition in Milan, Italy

david — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 12:47:33 +0000

Make whatever sacrifice you have to, but unless you were in Washington last Autumn and caught the National Gallery of Art’s exhibition of the work of Arcimboldo there, seize any chance to travel to Milan, Italy, and see it there from January 27th to May 8th 2011. It’s coming on at the Palazzo Reale. [...]

Truth Lies Hidden

david — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 16:02:08 +0000

A few weeks back the site got a load of US visitors from a link from a discussion on Reddit. Someone got caught out illegally downloading at college, and as a punishment had to produce a poster about the evils of pirating. The poster was to be inspected by the authorities and if approved, [...]

David Kemp

david — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 16:02:44 +0000

You’re going to have to hurry, but if you can get to the Royal Cornwall Museum in Truro, England, before July 3rd, you can see this brilliant sculpture of a dog by British sculptor David Kemp, in his exhibition The Botallack Hoard. It’s one of the dogs in his piece The Hounds of Geevor, and [...]

Eyespots

david — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 11:35:01 +0000

Eyespots are fascinating. Nature presents all sorts of camouflage and mimicry, but mostly when prey species look like harmful species, or are camouflaged against background, or imitate leaves, or when seahorses look like seaweed (sea dragons). The imitation then is in 3D, like a waxwork. But eyespots are nature’s only example of patterning that becomes [...]

Meet Humbaba

david — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 09:51:56 +0000

This is one of the oldest ambiguous images I know. It’s a small clay mask from Mesapotamia, (in modern day Iraq), made about 3750 years ago. It’s the face of the giant Humbaba, but as he might have appeared to a soothsayer, looking into the writhing entrails of a sacrificed animal for purposes of divination. [...]

Animated illusion cartoon – post no. 2

admin — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 10:12:17 +0000

Here’s a new chance to see illusions as you’ve never seen them before (unless of course you viewed our first post on animated illusion cartoons). This one is STAG and the SNOW FAIRY. The illusion it features, on which we have an earlier post, also with an animation, is revolving heads. You can also view [...]