Stare at the square in the middle of the design below.  Does it appear to be unstable and moving or hovering over the background?

This illusion is a variation of the Ouchi Illusion and was designed by French artist Daniel PICON.

In the image below, the red object on the bottom looks significantly larger than the orange object on the top, right?

Believe it or not, both objects are the exact same size.  This illusion was discovered by American psychologist Joseph Jastrow in 1889.  As such, it is often referred to as the Jastrow Illusion.

EDIT:  The above photograph of the orange and red objects was taken from an angle.  So if you print out this specific image and then cut out each object, they will be different sizes.  Had the photograph been taken from directly above the objects, it would work.  Located below is an alternate version of the Jastrow illusion.  Feel free to either trace the two objects or print and cut them out.  Object B appears to be larger than Object A, but they are identical in size.

Below is a video that also helps to demonstrate this illusion.

Shown here is the face of a man gazing to the left.  But there is also a secret double meaning.  Can you find the liar hiding in this portrait?

Many sites do not properly attribute this illusion or leave the source either blank or unknown.  This figure was drawn by a New York artist by the name of Paul Agule.

Do the two pillars on the Golden Gate Bridge appear to be parallel or skewed?

The photograph on the left and right are identical.  Therefore, the pillars must be perfectly aligned and parallel.  For most people, it appears that the images are skewed.  That is, the picture on the right is at a much sharper angle than the picture on the left.

The illusion was discovered by Frederick Kingdom, Ali Yoonessi and Elena Gheorghiu at McGill University.  In their version, an image of the Leaning Tower of Pisa was used to demonstrate the effect.  As such, this effect is commonly referred to as the “Leaning Tower Illusion”.  This discovery won the trio first prize in the Best Visual Illusion of the Year Contest in 2007.

This photograph was found on Wikipedia Commons.

A Droste Effect is a term with Dutch origins that refers to a recursive image where seemingly never-ending smaller versions of an image appears within the image itself.  Some, such as the one below, have an almost strange and uneasy feel to them.  I suppose that this is what infinity looks like.

Continue reading this post to learn a little more about the origins of the term “Droste Effect”.

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Jos Leys created the following impossible pattern taking inspiration from both Oscar Reutersvärd and M.C. Escher.  These cubes could not possibly be connected to one another in this way.

To see more impossible geometry, fractals and other works from Jos Leys, please visit his site.

Every year, the Sarasota Chalk Festival  attracts artists from all over the world.  At the 2011 festival, Leon Keer, Ruben Poncia, Remko van Schaik and Peter Westerink created the following anamorphic pavement chalk painting inspired by the Terracotta Army of Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China.

Two videos detailing this street painting and how it was conceived and put together are provided below.  If you have never seen one of these works of art in person, you may be surprised at how they are actually created to give the impression of 3D on a flat surface.

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