Optical Illusions

Optical illusions are images or pictures that we perceive differently than they really are. Put another way, optical illusions occur when our eyes send information to our brains that tricks us into perceiving something that does not match reality.

Optical illusions are created by using lines, color and value in different ways. The projects in this section will show you how to create your own optical illusions.

Below are some optical illusions by the artists Victor Vasarely and MC Escher

Here are the lessons in our Optical Illusions unit:

Wavy Paper Optical Illusion

Wavy Paper Optical Illusion 2

Twisted Square Optical Illusion

Victor Vasarely

Victor Vasarely (9 April 1906 –15 March 1997), was a Hungarian-French artist, who is widely accepted as a "grandfather" and leader of the op art movement. Here are some examples of Victor Vasarely's optical illusions.

Bianco

Duo-2 - 1967

Untitled

Carden - 1980

MC Escher

MC Escher was a Dutch graphic artist who made mathematically inspired woodcuts, lithographs, and mezzotints.

His work features mathematical objects and operations including impossible objects, explorations of infinity, reflection, symmetry, perspective, truncated and stellated polyhedra, hyperbolic geometry, and tessellations.

Flor de Pascua 1921

Drawing Hands

Ascending Descending

Relativity Lattice

Bird Fish

Symmetry Fish

Sky and Water

Waterfall