Saturday, May 21, 2005

Deceptive Art

WARNING: This blog entry was imported from my old blog on blogs.sun.com (which used different blogging software), so formatting and links may not be correct.


NetBeans logo on a T-shirt
Check out the image on the T-shirt on the right (I snagged it from
Lukas' blog).
The T-shirt is for their NetBeans 4.1 release party. Look closely at the logo - they've constructed
"4.1" using little NetBeans cubes. But look closer - the "4" is an impossible geometric construction!



I've been reading an interesting book lately:

Masters of Deception
by Al Seckel.

Well reading is the wrong term - it's really an art compilation with page upon page of reproductions
of famous "deceptive" art by artists like Escher and many I had never heard of.
I was amazed by the breadth of creativity in this area.






One really interesting image he included is a painting by Sandro Del-Prete.
This image has the property that the interpretation of the contents really
depends upon your experience (which is probably true for most pictures, but more so here).
I've reproduced only a small fragment of it - click on the small image on the left to see the real image.
Nearly all kids who see the picture see dolphins. Most adults see, well, something else...
From the book:


This image was displayed in an illusion exhibit gallery at the Museum of Science in Boston. When asked if there was any controversy about displaying this image, the curators replied that once a group of nuns had objected, but had quickly silenced when told that one's perception is based upon past experience.




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