Optical & Mind illusions

Life is full of optical illusions and deceits as there are tricks everywhere and you cannot trust your eyes.  
An illusion is an effect which is different from reality.Everything is in our heads. You´ll see double or even see things that never existed. You´ll have to put everything in perspective as both your eyes and your mind will be tricked. Does your mind´s eye see what it´s really out there or just what it thinks it sees? The French coined the term "trompe l´oeil" or trick the eye to define this phenomenon.
You´ll see imaginary things: both an old lady and a young lady , both two faces and two cups, someone both angry and happy at the same time, a man and a woman.  What we see is partly invented...We´ll see some impossible figures and situations, like How many legs has a particular elephant got? or How many prongs does a particular pitchfork have?
Perceptions are one thing, reality another and, in general, we may be full of wishful thinking to make life bearable.
As the Spanish folk song goes" daisies dreaming of becoming rosemary", or Mª Ángeles Pérez López´s
poem "scissors dreaming of becoming keys", nowhere will you find all this better expressed than in surrelist painters, such as Dali or Magritte´s hallucinatory imaginations.

Let´s start by mentioning some of Salvador Dali´s most surprising paintings:

 

THE LOBSTER TELEPHONE

DREAM CAUSED BY THE FLIGHT OF A BEE AROUND A POMEGRANATE A SECOND BEFORE AWAKENING

THE PERSISTENCE OF MEMORY (melting clocks)

THE MAE WEST LIPS  SOFA

THE METAMORPHOSIS OF NARCISSUS

THE GREAT MASTURBATOR

LEDA ATOMICA

THE PROFANATION OF THE HOST

THE BIRTH OF LIQUID DESIRES

SWANS REFLECTING ELEPHANTS

ANTHROPOMORPHIC BREAD

MORPHOLOGICAL ECHO

THE BURNING GIRAFFE

APPARITION OF FACE AND FRUIT DISH ON A BEACH

FOUNTAIN OF MILK FLOWING USELESSLY ON THREE SHOES

SLAVE MARKET WITH THE DISAPPEARING BUST OF VOLTAIRE

 

 

TRY TO SEE THE IMAGES OF THE FOLLOWING WORKS BY MAGRITTE:

 

MEMORY

THE MAN OF THE SEA

THE KEY TO DREAMS

THE KEY TO THE FIELDS

PERPETUAL MOTION

THE MARCH OF SUMMER

THE THERAPEUTIST

VICTORY

PHILOSOPHY IN A BOUDOIR

THE CHILDHOOD OF ICARUS

THE MAN IN THE BOWLER HAT

EVERY DAY.

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT M.C. ESCHER´S IMPOSSIBLE FIGURES &  BUILD YOUR OWN ILLUSION.

from Optical illusions, a D.K. book Pearson
        Revista de Occidente  July- August 2014 nº 398-399