Optical illusions, mirages, tricks are the result of the imperfection of our perception or are these unique opportunities that we do not know how to use reasonably? What is more important: carefully reproduce reality or create your own reality, filled with riddles and paradoxes?
Don't believe your eyes
Not only nature throws us visual riddles in the form of mirages. Examples of optical paradoxes can be found on the canvases of the great masters of the past. For example, The Forty on the Gallows by Peter Brueghel or The Frontispiece: A Satire on a False Perspective by William Hogarth. Oscar Reutersward's fascination with optical tricks was the beginning of a new direction in the visual arts - imp-art, the image of the impossible. The follower of this movement, Maurits Escher, said:
To draw is to deceive.
He created a series of engravings and drawings, the main task of which was to mislead the viewer, to make him doubt, reflect, and immerse himself in a detailed examination of the image in order to solve the secret hidden there.
Entertainment or science
Impossible is possible. Roger Penrose, a mathematician, published an article in 1958, where he put together a gallery of impossible figures and explained the features and principles of their depiction. You can figure it out on the example of Escher's Waterfall:
- Violation of the logic of space. Equally, at first glance, the size of the tower, with careful consideration, they are not.
- Distortion of perspective. The channels through which the water flows change the plane and the angle of inclination from the direction of the viewer's gaze.
- The combination of ordinary and fantasy elements in the images. The traditional architecture of the house, the everyday figure of a woman hanging clothes, is adjacent to the fantastic, alien plants in the front garden.
All this forces our brain to build new associative connections, correct logical axioms, push the scope of reality. Engravings by M. Escher are of interest and admiration not only for lovers of fine art, but also for mathematicians and engineers.
To make a fairy tale come true
"Waterfall" by Escher Maurits is a challenge to everyday life, the collapse of the stereotypes of our perception.
The desire to bring the impossible to life is a hallmark of humanity. And already dozens of “Kulibins” create working models of Escher's “Waterfall”. While they are imperfect and cause a lot of questions, but maybe the creation of an ideal perpetual motion machine is not far off, and someone will be able to build a reality that looks like a magical illusion.