DOSSIER Optical Illusions: the masters of the image

Optical illusions continue to fascinate. While new ones flood the web every week, some artists have decided to specialize in this area. Not content with mastering all the cogs, they sometimes innovate in the craziest of ways!

Optical illusions: where do they come from?

In the 15th century, Leonardo da Vinci updated the principle of retinal persistence. He indicates that “ if the eye which looks at the star turns quickly from the opposite side, it will seem to him that this star is composed in a fiery curved line. And this happens because the eye reserves, for a certain space, the similarity of the thing which shines and because this impression of the brilliance of the star persists longer in the pupil than the time of its appearance did. movement. "

It was not until the 19th century that Michael Faraday would define this phenomenon, which describes the fact that after observing an object, its image is formed on the retina by the through the optic nerve to stay there for a fraction of a second. In reality, our retina has a “ certain slowness” . Indeed, a new image is formed every 1/ ^12th of a second.

Optical illusions are born! Or rather…named as such.

Artists who master optical illusions to perfection

These illusions quickly give ideas to many artists. Of course, we can cite the works of Da Vinci and in particular his Mona Lisa, which follows us from the corner of the eye. But in a contemporary way, others have moved closer to more modern and always innovative techniques. Whether through tagging, make-up or even through desktop publishing, a single watchword: illusion!

Daniel Serva and Erik Johansson, are photographers and image manipulators. Their boundless imagination brings striking images to life. Judge for yourselves of their incredible work:

Daniel Serva is Venezuelan but it was in Paraguay that he began, with the project called '365', to play with our brain. His works are pretty nightmares from his subconscious that he works to perfection.

Erik Johansson is Swedish, but lives in Berlin. He walks around with his camera and captures pictures that at first seem absolutely normal. But the difference between him and us is that his overflowing imagination has already figured out what he was going to do with it. The result is images of absolute beauty.

The illusion at your fingertips

Photography and retouching are not the only ways to achieve amazing optical illusions. As in the early days of these illusions, it is by hand and drawing that some work to deceive us!

Two artists stand out by using graf, 20th century art century, long repressed, and which today offers splendid works. The Italian artist Manuel de Rita, better known as Peeta, uses the urban landscape to create his works.

With crazy talent, he manages to create trunks -the eye on formerly sad facades. Take a look at this work:

In the same kind of idea, the French artist Scaf also uses urban planning models to create his little scenes straight out of an animated film. The little extra? He does not hesitate to put himself on stage, as if he found himself surprised to discover life in his characters, his monsters or his objects of incredible realism!

Makeup, hit on social networks and worn by a queen of illusion

With the advent of social networks, trends are multiplying, coming and going for our greatest pleasure! Make-up tutorials have long had the wind in their sails and some artists quickly realized that they could take advantage of them to express their creativity.

Luca Luce is one of these specialists. Professional make-up artist, he quickly declines his talent on himself and literally transforms himself. Her face becomes a cubic playground. Picasso himself would have been mad!

Ines Kus also does not hesitate to use herself as a model. The young Croatian is transformed in a horribly magical way and would give us cold sweats in the middle of Halloween! Her make-up illusions are fiercely brilliant and make you want to see more and more.

But the queen of illusion makeup is definitely Dain Yoon , a 28-year-old Korean. The latter has flooded the Internet, which has torn off his works. She was even invited by Ellen Degeneres to present her work.

Dain Yoon has nearly 600,000 followers on Instagram. After starting to work on her face, she now uses her whole body as a playground.

Other artists, always surprising

Sometimes, some artists innovate even more in terms of the media used. This is the case of Li Hongbo, a Chinese artist who sculpts works in…paper. He makes busts and statues which, from a distance, look like any marble or plaster work. But they are all made of paper and therefore offer the possibility of folding and unfolding like accordions.

The principle is the same with Felix Semper, a Cuban artist who also uses paper, but creates works that may seem even less conventional.

[ =]Human bodies, made up and assembled, also make it possible to create incredible works. The king of "Camouflage Body Painting" is Johannes Stötter, who uses his human models to transform them but also animate them.

https://www.youtube .com/watch?v=erGFamHOniM&ab_channel=JohannesSt%C3%B6tter

The result is grandiose and the artist, like all those mentioned above, has been awarded many times.

There is no doubt that other kings of illusion will appear on the web, and therefore in our next sections on optical illusions. In the meantime, enjoy these timeless images made with incredible imagination and meticulousness!