Does this look like the work of one of our modern visual illusionists? Quite the opposite. This is a sculpture by Italian Rococo artist Antonio Corradini. He devoted years to this marble carving during the early 1740s without commission. The final work never even sold. What an incredible example of a finely-honed craft!
And to think that this was all carved out of marble by hand! Called The Vestal Virgin Tuccia, or Veiled Woman, it is now permanently housed in Rome at the Palazzo Barberini. His subject was an ancient Roman Vestal Virgin who was wrongly accused of lacking chastity.
Body Double
This photograph is a good example of a literal optical illusion. These types of illusions create an image of something that is not reality. It plays with perspectives. It appears that a guy with a large head and small body is reaching over to hug his girlfriend. However, just the opposite is true.
The person standing is actually the girl. Her body is leaning over and wrapping around the right side of the guy who is sitting in the chair. Her head is completely hidden from view, except for some long hair and a peek at her nostrils, which you can see if you look closely. Do you see her?
Whatever Floats Your Boat
This boat doesn’t even look like it’s afloat unless it is floating on air! It’s a whole new level of levitation. Or it’s just an optical illusion? The shadow under the boat is cast at the angle of the sun, while the water is so crystal clear that the surface level becomes invisible.
But, if you look at the rope that moors the craft, you will see it disappears into the water at the proper distance from the bow of the boat. Or, check out the guy at the back of the boat with his feet dangling in the water. Suddenly it all makes sense.
The Hidden 8 of Diamonds
Here we see a great example of use in negative space. It's one of those things that might take a while to realize but once you see you can't unsee. If you stare at this one long enough, the numeral eight begins to reveal itself in a new way.
It must have been someone very bored with a card game who figured this one out. Look at the eight diamond shapes. Then focus on the negative white space between them. Suddenly, a large figure eight in the center of the card appears. It’s a clever bit of detail, isn’t it?
I Got My Eyes on You
It's kind of creepy to feel so many eyes staring at you. So many eyes, so many noses, so many mouths. We need a second here to decipher which features are actually hers and which were painted on. After careful examination, we think it's the bottom ones.
This makeup artist, based in Vancouver, B.C., has an Instagram page full of these types of illusory looks like this. Her name is Mimi Choi, and She was inspired by another artist called Alex Garant. Having smaller versions of your face on your face! It's almost all a little too real-looking. Is that really makeup?!