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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 make 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. Rings of seahorses seem to rotate and butterflies seems to transform into warriors right on the page. Astonishing creations of visual trickery by masters of the art, such as Escher, Dali, and Archimbolo make this breathtaking collection the definitive book of optical illusions

Among the most baffling and entertaining illusions are those created by anamorphic distortion. By sophisticated application of the laws of perspective, pictures can be stretched and distorted beyond recognition, remaining 'unreadable' until they are viewed from a special angle or with the aid of a suitably shaped reflecting surface. In this book we can play the game of perspective distortion in the company of artists such as Leonardo, Holbein, Caravaggio, and Carracci, and follow its progress through the centuries ... A sheet of reflecting silver plastic is packed in each book. When rolled into a cylinder and placed on a circular picture, it unravels the many secrets -- the hidden political, religious, and erotic images -- that lie hidden in these strange and wonderful works of art

« Quand l’oeil s’amuse … », annonce l’Édito de ce numéro de la revue Dada qui explore, en sept rubriques, l’univers des trompe-l’oeil. Le panorama est séduisant : sur quelle pièce ouvre cette porte d’une fresque de Pompéi ? Les anges descendent des voûtes de la Renaissance. Sur les murs aveugles de vieux immeubles, virevoltent des hommes-volants. Le doute est plus troublant encore avec ce beau nuage blanc de Smilde, piégé sous la coupole ou cet homme que Li Wei photographie en apesanteur sur un bouquet de ballons tenu par une fillette. Surprises, énigmes sont le fruit de techniques diverses : jeu avec la perspective, anamorphoses, illusion du mouvement, changement d’échelle. Les artistes s’amusent de ces règles de la représentation : derrière toute image on peut en donner à lire une autre. Le lecteur est ravi de se laisser duper et de tenter ensuite lui aussi de faire sortir du cadre ses propres réalisations ! C’est amusant et stimulant.