Monday 25 May 2009

IMPROBABILITIES

I've always had a deep fascination with and a high regard for the extraordinary art of M C Escher, famous for creating amazing graphic designs especially of structural impossibilities...


Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898-1972) lived and worked in the Netherlands, and created his first 'impossible reality' in 1937 with the woodcut print, Still Life and Street...


Escher's exercises in playing with perspectives and perceptions have delighted generations the world over and have even inspired enthusiasts to recreate his implausible buildings in LEGO...

Now, I've discovered the work of Erik Johansson from Göteborg, Sweden, who - with manipulated photographic imagery - is creating similarly perplexing visual paradoxes.

Here are a few comparable puzzles from these two artists and you can click on any image to enlarge...











Images: M C Escher and Erik Johansson

Thanks to Irascian for the link to Johansson's work.

4 comments:

SharonM said...

Wow - they're terrific - wonderfully inventive illusions. But, I think there should be a warning for the squeamish before anyone looks at 'Nackdden med att hackafort' (whatever that means) from Johansson's 2008 Gallery.
It has put me off chopping carrots for life!

Brian Sibley said...

I think chopping anything always involves some risk of an unintentional (and undesirable) 'hackafort' occurring. That's why Blue Peter always said "get a grown-up to help you with this"!

scb said...

There's nothing like having someone reach through one's eyes and tie one's brain into knots to make a good start to the day. (Not that this is the first time I've read this post... I keep coming back to have my brain re-hackaforted...)

RANJO -- someone who doesn't enjoy bluegrass music fleeing in haste from a banjo concert. ???

scb said...

P.S. And Blue Peter was right.